Collinear AI · 1 day ago
Head of Research
Sunnyvale, CA
Full-time
Onsite
Director/Executive
$250K/yr - $400K/yr
7+ years expCollinear AI is a VC-backed startup that powers leading AI labs and Fortune 500 enterprises with high-signal post-training datasets and RL environments. As the Head of Research, you will own Collinear’s research vision and execution, leading a team of research scientists and engineers to translate research into measurable improvements in real-world AI systems.
Artificial Intelligence (AI)
Responsibilities
Define and lead Collinear’s research roadmap across:
LLM evaluation and benchmark design
Agent-based and multi-turn simulation environments
Post-training methods (CPT, SFT, RLHF/RLAIF, reward modeling)
High-signal data and semi-synthetic data generation
Lead and grow a team of research scientists and research/ML engineers
Translate research ideas into scalable, production-ready systems
Partner closely with founders on technical strategy, roadmap, and prioritization
Collaborate with enterprise customers to understand real failure modes and guide research direction
Represent Collinear externally through papers, talks, open-source contributions, or community engagement
Qualification
Required
PhD in CS or related area
7–10+ years of experience in ML research, applied research, or research engineering
Experience leading research projects or teams (formal management experience is a plus but not required)
Deep familiarity with LLMs and post-training techniques, such as: Evaluation and benchmark design, RLHF / RLAIF / reward modeling, Synthetic or semi-synthetic data generation, Red-teaming, robustness, or failure-mode analysis
Experience publishing at or contributing to top-tier venues (e.g., NeurIPS, ICML, ICLR, ACL, EMNLP) and/or impactful open-source projects
Strong communication skills and comfort working across research, engineering, and product
Preferred
Experience in an industry research lab or fast-growing startup
Prior work on agent systems, interactive environments, or multi-turn evaluation
Experience working directly with customers or external stakeholders
Comfort operating with ambiguity and high ownership at an early-stage company
Benefits
Equity
Benefits
Bonuses
Company
Collinear AI
Bespoke Evaluation and Alignment for Enterprise AI
11-50 employees
H1B Sponsorship
Collinear AI has a track record of offering H1B sponsorships. Please note that this does not
guarantee sponsorship for this specific role. Below presents additional info for your
reference. (Data Powered by US Department of Labor)
Distribution of Different Job Fields Receiving Sponsorship
Represents job field similar to this job
Trends of Total Sponsorships
2025 (3)
Funding
Current Stage
Early StageCompany data provided by crunchbase