Research Engineer, Data Foundations
At a glance
Mid-level AI Research role at Runway. Remote, United States · full-time · $270,000–$370,000 base.
aimlroles summary, based on the employer's posting.
What you'll do
- Decide which multimodal examples to gather, create or curate, and test how they affect model behavior
- Run controlled training trials to connect data makeup with performance across different tasks and domains
- Build and run large-scale systems for creating synthetic data, filtering it and checking quality
- Set up benchmarks and evaluations to check whether models improve on target capabilities
- Work with product and creative teams to turn desired behaviors into practical data plans
What you bring
- At least four years of machine learning experience
- Hands-on work with substantial multimodal datasets and generative models, including video or image
- Strong judgment about how dataset composition and quality shape model capabilities
- Ability to move between data analysis, dataset creation, training and evaluation
- Skill with at least one ML framework and distributed computing tools
Who this fits
This role suits a research engineer who wants to shape model capabilities through data design, experiments and infrastructure. It is a remote position for people in the United States.
From the employer
We are building AI to simulate the world through merging art and science.
We believe that world models are at the frontier of progress in artificial intelligence. Language models alone won’t solve the world’s hardest problems – robotics, disease, scientific discovery. Real progress requires models that experience the world and learn from their mistakes, the same way that humans do. And this kind of trial and error can be massively accelerated when done in simulation, rather than in the real world.
World models offer the most clear path to general-purpose simulation, changing how stories are told, how scientific progress is made and how the next frontiers of humanity are reached.
Our team consists of creative, open minded, caring and ambitious people who are determined to change the world. We aspire to continuously build impossible things and our ability to do so relies on building an incredible team. If you are driven to do the same, we'd love to hear from you.
About the role
Building general world models — systems that understand and simulate reality across tasks, modalities, and domains — demands training data that is as rich and varied as the real world itself. We’re looking for Research Engineers to own the data behind our models: what they learn from, how well they learn it, and what new capabilities that unlocks. You will design datasets, run modeling experiments, and build the infrastructure to generate and curate data at scale — directly shaping what our models can do, with applications ranging from creative tools to robotics.
What you'll do
Design multimodal, multitask datasets that teach world models new capabilities — deciding what data to collect, generate, or curate and measuring its effect on model behavior
Run controlled training experiments to understand how data composition drives model performance across tasks and domains
Build and operate large-scale pipelines for synthetic data generation, filtering, and quality control
Define evaluations and benchmarks that measure whether our models are actually improving at the things that matter
Partner with product and creative teams to translate target behaviors and capabilities into concrete data strategies
What you'll need
4+ years of experience in machine learning, bonus points for data-centric approaches
Experience with large multimodal datasets and generative models (video, image, or multimodal)
Deep intuition for how data composition and quality translate to model capabilities
Comfort working across the full research stack: data analysis, dataset creation, model training, evaluation, and back again
Proficiency with at least one ML framework (e.g. PyTorch, JAX) and distributed compute tools (e.g. Ray, Kubernetes)
Excitement about building AI that simulates the world
Runway strives to recruit and retain exceptional talent from diverse backgrounds while ensuring pay equity for our team. Our salary ranges are based on competitive market rates for our size, stage and industry, and salary is just one part of the overall compensation package we provide.
There are many factors that go into salary determinations, including relevant experience, skill level and qualifications assessed during the interview process, and maintaining internal equity with peers on the team. The range shared below is a general expectation for the function as posted, but we are also open to considering candidates who may be more or less experienced than outlined in the job description. In this case, we will communicate any updates in the expected salary range.
Lastly, the provided range is the expected salary for candidates in the U.S. Outside of those regions, there may be a change in the range, which again, will be communicated to candidates.
Working at Runway
Great things come from great teams. We’d love to hear from you.
We’re committed to creating a space where our employees can bring their full selves to work and have equal opportunity to succeed. So regardless of race, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, religion, origin, ability, age, veteran status, if joining this mission speaks to you, we encourage you to apply.
More about Runway
We're excited to be recognized as a best place to work:
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