Founding Research Engineer (AI)

Location: On-site in London, England, UK or San Francisco, California, USA; remote and hybrid arrangements are also considered. US work authorization is required; visa transfers are considered, but new sponsorship is not available.

Salary: $150,000 USD annually in the US or approximately £75,000 GBP in London. Equity participation of up to 1–2% is available for a founding-level hire.

Company

hirify.global is a Y Combinator-backed wearable startup building AI-powered emotional intelligence tools.

What you will do

• Design, develop, and iterate on an inference model for quantifying real-time emotional states.
• Process wearable biometric and audio signals for emotional-state inference.
• Bridge computational neuroscience research and production machine learning systems.
• Translate scientific insights into deployable, reliable software.
• Own both the theoretical and engineering layers of the model stack.

Requirements

• PhD in computational neuroscience, cognitive science, active inference, or a closely related field.
• 2–7 years of experience bridging neuroscience research and production machine learning systems.
• Strong Python proficiency for machine learning model development and deployment.
• Ability to operate as both a researcher and a machine learning engineer.
• US work authorization required; visa transfers considered, with no new visa sponsorship.

Culture & Benefits

• Founding-level role with direct influence on the company's technical direction.
• Work at the intersection of computational neuroscience, wearable sensing, and production machine learning.
• On-site, remote, and hybrid arrangements are considered.
• Equity participation of up to 1–2% for a founding-level hire.