Research, Pre-Training Data at ThinkingMachines

Department: Research

Compensation

$350,000 – $475,000/yr

Setup: Hybrid
Location: San Francisco, California
Type: Full-time
Level: not_specified
Posted: Aug 4, 2026

Description

Thinking Machines is hiring a Pre-training Researcher to blend fundamental research with large-scale data engineering for AI model pre-training. The role focuses on sourcing, curating, filtering, and analyzing text, code, and multimodal data; developing quality metrics; building scalable data-processing systems; addressing privacy, safety, and licensing risks; evaluating dataset effects on model learning; and publishing research. The position is based in San Francisco, California, with an expected annual salary of $350,000–$475,000 USD, visa sponsorship, and health, dental, vision, PTO, parental leave, and relocation benefits.

Required Skills

Python
Deep learning
Data engineering
Data quality
Data ethics

Additional Information

Minimum Education: Bachelor’s degree or equivalent experience in Computer Science, Machine Learning, Physics, Mathematics, or a related discipline with strong theoretical and empirical grounding
Required Previous Experiences: Python and deep learning framework experience, including distributed training and scalable code
Preferred Qualifications: Strong grasp of probability, statistics, and machine learning fundamentals
Experience curating, preprocessing, and analyzing large-scale text, code, or multimodal datasets
Experience in data engineering, dataset construction, or large-scale web data processing for machine learning models
Experience evaluating or improving training data quality and knowledge of data ethics, safety, and licensing frameworks
Contributions to open datasets, research publications, or data tooling
PhD in a relevant discipline or equivalent industry research experience