Autodesk · 11 hours ago
AI Research Manager/Scientist, Post-training
San Francisco, CA
Full-time
Hybrid
Senior Level
$175K/yr - $302K/yrAutodesk is a company that helps innovators turn their ideas into reality through software. They are seeking an AI Scientist Manager to lead post-training and model alignment efforts, managing a team while remaining hands-on in research to ensure reliable and production-ready AI systems.
3D TechnologyArchitectureConstructionManufacturingSoftware Engineering
Responsibilities
Lead and contribute directly to post-training pipelines, including: instruction tuning and multi-task fine-tuning; preference optimization (RLHF, RLAIF, DPO, PPO, and related methods); domain-specific post-training and specialization for the AECO, Manufacturing, and Media & Entertainment industries)
Design and run experiments that shape model behavior, robustness, and reliability
Decide what problems are best addressed through post-training vs pre-training vs product-level mitigation
Partner with infrastructure teams to ensure efficient, reproducible, and scalable post-training workflows
Design and maintain evaluation frameworks that measure: long-horizon reasoning and planning; tool-use and agentic behavior; safety, robustness, and alignment; regression and behavioral drift across releases
Lead human-in-the-loop evaluation, ensuring annotation quality, consistency, and bias awareness
Provide clear go / no-go recommendations for model releases, including explicit articulation of known risks and trade-offs
Manage, mentor, and grow a team of AI scientists working on post-training and alignment
Set clear technical direction while empowering researchers to own end-to-end projects
Hire and develop scientists with strengths across ML, RL, evaluation, and human-centered AI
Foster a culture of: rigorous experimentation and ablation, reproducibility and scientific integrity, thoughtful risk-taking and humility about model behavior
Provide regular feedback, career coaching, and performance management
Act as a key interface between: pre-training research; infrastructure and compute teams; Model Delivery team; safety, policy, and legal stakeholders
Translate complex research trade-offs into clear, decision-ready guidance for leadership
Influence the broader AI roadmap by identifying post-training opportunities that unlock product impact
Qualification
Required
PhD or equivalent industry experience in Machine Learning, AI, or a related field
Proven experience as a people manager of technical research or ML teams
Strong hands-on expertise in: large language models or foundation models, fine-tuning and post-training methods (e.g., RLHF, DPO, instruction tuning), experimental design and evaluation
Ability to move fluidly between research depth and organizational leadership
Strong communication skills, with the ability to explain complex trade-offs to technical and non-technical audiences
Preferred
Experience operating in an AI research lab or frontier model organization
Background in human-in-the-loop systems, preference learning, or alignment research
Experience shipping or supporting production AI systems
Familiarity with large-scale training infrastructure and compute cost trade-offs
Experience in Architecture, Civil or Mechanical Engineering, Construction, Manufacturing, Media & Entertainment or other Autodesk domains
Benefits
Annual cash bonuses
Commissions for sales roles
Stock grants
Comprehensive benefits package
Company
Autodesk
Autodesk develops 3D design software for use in the architecture, engineering, construction, and media industries.
Founded in 1982
10001+ employees
H1B Sponsorship
Autodesk 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 (233)
2024 (243)
2023 (269)
2022 (359)
2021 (298)
2020 (260)
Funding
Current Stage
Public CompanyTotal Funding
$1.5BKey Investors
CitibankOK Blockchain Capital
2025-07-01Acquired
2025-05-08Post Ipo Debt· $1.5B
2020-08-25Seed
Leadership Team
Andrew Anagnost
President and Chief Executive Officer
Janesh Moorjani
CFO
Recent News
legacy.thefly.com
2026-01-23
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