Staff R&D AI Engineer (AI)

Location: Austin, TX; hybrid

Company

hirify.global is building distributed AI infrastructure for personalized AI, enabling private large models and real-time data processing on consumer hardware and at the edge.

What you will do

• Design and develop Vision-Language-Action models integrating visual perception, natural language understanding, and action prediction.
• Architect reinforcement learning systems for sequential decision-making, policy learning, and skill acquisition.
• Build and optimize computer vision pipelines for object detection, segmentation, tracking, and scene understanding.
• Develop and fine-tune large language models for instruction following, reasoning, task planning, and RLHF-based alignment.
• Create multimodal training pipelines using synthetic and real-world data, and optimize inference for real-time edge and cloud deployments.
• Lead technical initiatives, mentor AI engineers, collaborate with engineering teams, and present or publish research.

Requirements

• 7+ years of AI/ML engineering experience, including 4+ years focused on deep learning and neural network development.
• Strong knowledge of reinforcement learning algorithms such as PPO, SAC, and TD3, as well as sequential decision-making and control systems.
• Hands-on expertise in computer vision and natural language processing, including detection, segmentation, visual tracking, transformers, and large language model fine-tuning.
• Proficiency in Python and PyTorch and/or TensorFlow, with experience in distributed training, model optimization, and large-scale model deployment.
• Experience with MLOps practices, including model versioning, monitoring, and deployment pipelines.
• Ability to work independently on complex research problems and collaborate effectively with cross-functional engineering teams.

Nice to have

• PhD in Computer Science, Robotics, AI/ML, or a related field focused on multimodal learning or robotics.
• Experience with VLA models, RLHF, imitation learning, inverse reinforcement learning, embodied AI, or sim-to-real transfer.
• Knowledge of 3D computer vision, spatial reasoning, edge AI optimization, distributed training frameworks, or safety-critical AI systems.
• Published research, open-source contributions, startup experience, and familiarity with cloud platforms and containerization.

Culture & Benefits

• Values include truth, ownership, tenacity, and humility.
• Competitive salary, equity options, and comprehensive health, dental, and vision benefits for U.S.-based employees.
• 401(k) match, flexible time off, parental leave, supplemental life insurance, and continuing education support.
• $200/month Health & Wellness stipend and a $500/year Function Health subscription.
• Free parking is available for in-office employees; benefits may vary outside the United States.