Research Scientist / Research Engineer (LLMs & VLMs)

Research Scientist / Research Engineer (LLMs & VLMs) - Perm - Pembroke Pines, FL - $215,000-$280,000

The final salary or hourly wage, as applicable, paid to each candidate/applicant for this position is ultimately dependent on a variety of factors, including, but not limited to, the candidate's/applicant's qualifications, skills, and level of experience as well as the geographical location of the position.

Applicants must be legally authorized to work in the United States. Visa sponsorship not available.

Our client is seeking a Research Scientist / Research Engineer (LLMs & VLMs) in Pembroke Pines, FL

Role Description

Develop and improve state-of-the-art foundation models through post-training, fine-tuning, and evaluation.
You'll work on adapting modern LLMs and VLMs for challenging real-world applications.
Train, fine-tune, and evaluate modern LLMs and VLMs
Develop post-training pipelines, including supervised fine-tuning and preference optimization
Design and execute experiments to improve model quality and robustness
Collaborate with infrastructure engineers to optimize large-scale training workflows
Analyze model performance and iterate using rigorous evaluation methodologies

Skills & Requirements

Strong proficiency in Python and PyTorch
Proven experience pre mid and post trainning LLMs and/or VLMs
Deep understanding of Transformer architectures and modern foundation models
Experience with distributed training and large-scale experimentation
Strong knowledge of tokenization, optimization, data pipelines, and evaluation methodologies
Experience using experiment tracking tools such as Weights & Biases
Experience with reinforcement learning for LLMs (RLHF, RLAIF, GRPO, PPO, or related methods)
Experience with parameter-efficient fine-tuning (LoRA, DoRA, QLoRA, adapters)
Familiarity with distributed training frameworks such as DeepSpeed, FSDP, or Megatron-LM
Demonstrated experience training large foundation models across multi-GPU or multi-node clusters, including optimizing distributed training performance and scalability
Experience training on web-scale datasets (e.g., billions of tokens for LLMs or tens to hundreds of millions of images/video samples for VLMs)
Experience in computer vision, including image understanding, detection, segmentation, or multimodal learning
Strong understanding of 3D geometry, 3D vision, or spatial reasoning (e.g., point clouds, meshes, NeRFs, SLAM, or 3D reconstruction)
Publications or significant open-source contributions in generative AI, multimodal learning, or computer vision
Experience deploying research models into production environments

Benefits/Other Compensation

This position is a contract/temporary role where Hays offers you the opportunity to enroll in full medical benefits, dental benefits, vision benefits, 401K and Life Insurance ($20,000 benefit).

Why Hays?

You will be working with a professional recruiter who has intimate knowledge of the industry and market trends. Your Hays recruiter will lead you through a thorough screening process in order to understand your skills, experience, needs, and drivers. You will also get support on resume writing, interview tips, and career planning, so when there's a position you really want, you're fully prepared to get it.

Nervous about an upcoming interview? Unsure how to write a new resume?

Visit the Hays Career Advice section to learn top tips to help you stand out from the crowd when job hunting.

Hays is committed to building a thriving culture of diversity that embraces people with different backgrounds, perspectives, and experiences. We believe that the more inclusive we are, the better we serve our candidates, clients, and employees. We are an equal employment opportunity employer, and we comply with all applicable laws prohibiting discrimination based on race, color, creed, sex (including pregnancy, sexual orientation, or gender identity), age, national origin or ancestry, physical or mental disability, veteran status, marital status, genetic information, HIV-positive status, as well as any other characteristic protected by federal, state, or local law. One of Hays' guiding principles is 'do the right thing'.
We also believe that actions speak louder than words.
In that regard, we train our staff on ensuring inclusivity throughout the entire recruitment process and counsel our clients on these principles. If you have any questions about Hays or any of our processes, please contact us.

In accordance with applicable federal, state, and local law protecting qualified individuals with known disabilities, Hays will attempt to reasonably accommodate those individuals unless doing so would create an undue hardship on the company. Any qualified applicant or consultant with a disability who requires an accommodation in order to perform the essential functions of the job should call or text .

Drug testing may be required; please contact a recruiter for more information.

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