Starburst
Applied AI Research Engineer
$215K–$270K
United States · Full-time · Posted Sep 17, 2026
- Experience
- 3+ years in information retrieval, NLP, knowledge representation, or applied ML research.
About the job
Own and improve the intelligence layer for AIDA agents by building enterprise-data grounding and retrieval systems, defining quality metrics, and turning research into production improvements.
What you'll do
- Build grounding systems and optimize retrieval pipelines for accuracy and latency.
- Develop evaluation frameworks, quality metrics, dashboards, and feedback loops for agent performance.
- Run research experiments and deploy validated findings in production.
What they ask for
- Production experience building RAG, grounding, or retrieval systems.
- Strong evaluation methodology, including benchmark design, statistical analysis, and reproducible experiments.
- Python fluency; experience with vector databases, embedding models, and LLM APIs.
- Track record of converting research insights into shipped production systems.
Nice to have
- Experience with enterprise data systems, text-to-SQL or structured query generation, or evaluation pipelines in CI/CD.
- Published research or open-source contributions in IR, NLP, or evaluation methodology; familiarity with JVM-based systems.
Pay
$215,000 — $270,000 USD (salary range; may be inclusive of variable compensation)
Tools
RAG, hybrid search, Python, vector databases, embedding models, LLM APIs, SQL engines, JVM-based systems
AI focus
Build trustworthy, grounded agents for enterprise data, including retrieval, knowledge representation, evaluation, and feedback systems.
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