--- title: 'R&D Engineer at Ultralytics' canonical: 'https://feeny.ai/job/r-d-engineer-ultralytics-remote-6ktz21cwft91' type: 'job' last_seen: '2026-09-06' --- # R&D Engineer at Ultralytics - **Company:** Ultralytics - **Location:** Remote - **Employment:** full-time - **Work type:** remote - **Posted:** 2026-06-29 - **Last confirmed live:** 2026-09-06 - **Apply:** https://jobs.ashbyhq.com/ultralytics/753c6edd-a39b-4fd6-984b-3259610bc46e/application **Skills:** Python, PyTorch, Computer Vision, Deep Learning, Neural Network Architecture Design, Convolutional Neural Networks, Attention Mechanisms, Normalization, Optimization, Loss Design, Quantization, Pruning, Distillation, Neural Architecture Search, Distributed training, Mixed precision, CUDA profiling, Model deployment, Ultralytics Python package, CVPR > Design and develop neural network architectures for YOLO models, conducting rigorous experiments and optimization. The role involves turning research ideas into production-ready open-source models and collaborating with cross-disciplinary teams to advance vision AI. ## Job description About Ultralytics: At Ultralytics https://ultralytics.com/, we commit to relentless innovation in the AI space and seek team members https://www.ultralytics.com/about who resonate with our ambition to produce the world's best YOLO AI models https://ultralytics.com/yolo. If you're obsessed with AI, eager to make an impact on the world, and thrive in dynamic, high-intensity environments, we invite you to apply for a position on our team. ## ⚑ WHO WE ARE At Ultralytics https://www.ultralytics.com/, we're on a mission to simplify AI for everyone. As the creators of the world's leading open-source YOLO models https://docs.ultralytics.com/models/ and the popular Ultralytics GitHub repository https://github.com/ultralytics, we empower millions of developers, researchers, and companies worldwide to build state-of-the-art computer vision applications. Following our $30M Series A round https://www.ultralytics.com/news/ultralytics-raises-30m-series-a, we're expanding rapidly across our global hubs in London, Madrid, and Shenzhen. This is an opportunity to join a fast-scaling, high-performance team that's redefining the future of vision AI β€” where ambition meets impact, and ideas become reality. We move fast. We build boldly. We execute with purpose. And we do it together. ## πŸ’Ό ABOUT THE ROLE As an R&D Engineer focused on neural network architectures for YOLO, you'll design and develop the neural network architectures at the core of how YOLO https://docs.ultralytics.com/models/ is built. Your work will directly shape the open-source models used by millions of developers across detection, segmentation, pose, and emerging vision tasks. You'll operate at the intersection of research and production, turning ideas from papers into performant architectures, rigorous experiments, and production-ready model designs. Working closely with our cross-disciplinary R&D team, you'll help define future releases across the Ultralytics ecosystem https://www.ultralytics.com/ and contribute to the technical foundations documented in our docs https://docs.ultralytics.com/ and guides https://docs.ultralytics.com/guides/. This role is ideal for a hands-on researcher who thrives on first-principles thinking, rapid experimentation, and high ownership. You bring deep architectural intuition, strong PyTorch skills, and the drive to build original models that advance the state of the art. ## πŸš€ WHAT YOU'LL DO ## RESEARCH & ARCHITECTURE DESIGN - Research, design, and build novel neural network architectures for next-generation YOLO models. - Develop core components including backbones, necks, heads, attention modules, and efficient building blocks. - Read, reproduce, and extend cutting-edge papers into working model architectures from scratch. ## EXPERIMENTATION & OPTIMIZATION - Run rigorous ablation studies and large-scale architecture experiments across standard benchmarks. - Improve accuracy, latency, and scaling through distillation, pruning, and quantization-aware design. - Build training recipes and evaluation pipelines for detection, segmentation, pose, and new vision tasks. ## COLLABORATION & OWNERSHIP - Partner with R&D and engineering teams to turn research ideas into production-ready open-source models. - Contribute to foundational model initiatives that support future YOLO and broader vision systems. - Take ownership of assigned R&D tasks beyond architecture work and solve problems efficiently and correctly. ## 🧠 SKILLS AND EXPERIENCE ## CORE REQUIREMENTS - 5+ years of hands-on experience in computer vision and deep learning with architecture design expertise. - Proven success building models from the ground up, not just fine-tuning pretrained checkpoints. - Expert-level Python and deep proficiency in PyTorch, including custom layers, modules, and training loops. - Strong command of convolutions, attention, normalization, optimization, and loss design fundamentals. - Ability to read a research paper and implement it faithfully and efficiently from scratch. - Experience with efficiency research such as quantization, pruning, distillation, or neural architecture search. - Strong portfolio of research contributions through papers, preprints, open-source code, or original model work. - High ownership, adaptability, and comfort operating in a fast-moving research environment. ## NICE TO HAVE - Published research at venues such as CVPR, ICCV, ECCV, NeurIPS, or ICLR. - Experience with distributed training, mixed precision, CUDA profiling, or model deployment constraints. - Active open-source presence with architecture-focused repositories and meaningful community adoption. - Familiarity with the Ultralytics Python package https://github.com/ultralytics/ultralytics, documentation https://docs.ultralytics.com/, or community forum https://community.ultralytics.com/. - History of taking original research from prototype to models others actually use. ## 🌟 CULTURAL FIT At Ultralytics, we set bold goals and execute with speed, precision, and teamwork. We're driven by hard work, ambition, and resilience β€” building fast, learning constantly, and delivering measurable impact. You'll thrive here if you: - Take ownership and deliver results with focus and accountability. - Combine deep technical thinking with hands-on execution. - Value excellence, grit, and creativity in equal measure. - See collaboration as the foundation for meaningful progress. Our culture is built around our core values: - Relentless progress: Constant evolution and improvement. - Strive for excellence: Perseverance and attention to detail. - Actions, not words: Focus on delivering meaningful results. - Act with urgency: Seize fleeting opportunities. - Open access to all: Transparent communication and collaboration. Learn more in our Ultralytics Handbook https://handbook.ultralytics.com/ and Mission & Values https://handbook.ultralytics.com/mission-vision-values. ## πŸ’° COMPENSATION AND BENEFITS We reward excellence and impact β€” not just tenure or title. - Competitive salary: Reflecting your experience and contribution. - Equity packages: We want our success to be yours too. - Global collaboration: Work with passionate builders across our global team. - Flexible working hours: We value results over routines. - Generous time off: 24 vacation days, your birthday off, plus local holidays. - Tech & tools: Work on cutting-edge AI projects that power millions of devices. - Gear: Brand-new Apple MacBook Air/Pro, Apple Studio Display, and AirPods Pro 3. - Learning & development: Dedicated budget for personal and professional growth. - High impact: Your work will shape the future of vision AI. ## 🌎 WHERE AND HOW YOU CAN WORK This is a remote role. πŸ‘‰ Check out ultralytics.com/careers https://www.ultralytics.com/careers for more about our culture, values, and teams. What we offer: Cutting-Edge, Next-Generation AI Computer Vision Technology: Contribute to building cutting-edge computer vision AI models based on the YOLO framework. Impactful Work: Shape the future of AI-powered solutions that transform industries. Collaborative Culture: Join a talented and passionate team that values open communication and innovation. Ultralytics Handbook Comprehensive guide to our company's mission, vision, values, and operational practices. This handbook is designed to provide key insights and resources for our (future) team members, collaborators, and community to align with Ultralytics' core principles. Link: https://handbook.ultralytics.com/ Ultralytics is an equal opportunity employer committed to building an inclusive workplace. We believe that everyone should be able to bring their whole selves to work, and we do not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, age, veteran status, disability, or any other legally protected status. ## About Ultralytics ## Company Overview - **One-liner**: Ultralytics provides an end-to-end computer vision platform built around the widely adopted YOLO (You Only Look Once) family of open-source AI models. - **Entity Type**: Private (startup) - **Headquarters**: London, United Kingdom (with offices in Shenzhen, Madrid, and New York) - **Founded**: Not publicly available (YOLO models first released by Ultralytics in 2020) - **Founders**: Glenn Jocher ## Core Business - **Primary industry/industries**: Artificial Intelligence, Computer Vision, SaaS - **Target customers**: Developers, startups, SMBs, and enterprise teams deploying vision AI (B2B / B2D) - **Mission or purpose statement**: "To push the boundaries of AI through relentless execution, creating the world’s best open-source solutions." [ultralytics.com/about] ## Products & Services - **Ultralytics YOLO (You Only Look Once)**: The industry-standard open-source object detection and vision AI model family (YOLOv5, YOLOv8, YOLO11, YOLO26) used by millions of developers worldwide. [ultralytics.com] - **Ultralytics Platform**: A unified SaaS platform for annotation, training, and deployment of vision AI models. Includes cloud-accelerated training (22 GPU options), smart annotation tools (bounding boxes, segmentation, keypoints), and deployment to 43 global regions with auto-scaling. Supports 19 export formats (ONNX, TensorRT, CoreML, TFLite, etc.). [ultralytics.com] - **Ultralytics Solutions**: Industry-specific AI applications for healthcare, robotics, autonomous navigation, and more. [handbook.ultralytics.com/introduction] ## Market Standing - **Valuation/Market Cap**: Not publicly available (private company) - **Key Metric**: Total Funding – Not publicly available (no disclosed rounds); team headcount ~58 as of mid-2025 (based on team page tags) [ultralytics.com/about] - **Notable Investors/Partners**: Not publicly available; partners inferred from ecosystem (NVIDIA GPU support, cloud providers) - **Growth Signals**: "Fast-growing startup" with active hiring across product, sales, and engineering; new office in New York; community of 1M+ developers using YOLO; tools powering 1B+ daily uses in production. [ultralytics.com/careers] ## Competitive Advantages - **Open-source leadership**: YOLO models are the de facto standard for real-time object detection, with massive community adoption and trust. - **End-to-end platform**: Combines annotation, training, and deployment in one product, reducing friction for developers. - **Developer-first design**: Python SDK, no-code interface, and broad export format support make integration easy across edge, mobile, and cloud. - **Global infrastructure**: Deploy models across 43 regions with auto-scaling and real-time monitoring. - **First-mover in open vision AI**: Continuous model releases (YOLOv5 through YOLO26) keep them ahead of competitors. ## Strategic Focus - **Platform monetization**: Converting open-source users into paying SaaS customers for training and deployment. - **Enterprise expansion**: Dedicated Customer Success team, custom SLAs, and enterprise terms to win large deployments. - **Edge and mobile deployment**: Optimizing models for CoreML, TensorFlow Lite, QNN to capture IoT and embedded markets. - **LLM integration**: Hiring LLM Engineers to combine language AI with vision models for multimodal solutions. [ultralytics.com/careers] - **Global office presence**: Scaling teams in London, Madrid, Shenzhen, and New York to support international growth. ## Why Work Here - **Hybrid culture**: "High-Resolution Hybrid" with Anchor Days (Tue/Wed/Thu) in-office for those within commutable distance; flex on Mon/Fri for deep work. [handbook.ultralytics.com/introduction] - **Offices in 4 cities**: London, Madrid, Shenzhen, New York – dog-friendly workplaces. - **Perks**: Competitive salaries, latest Apple MacBook Air and AirPods Pro, 24 days PTO plus birthday off and local holidays, true ownership of projects. [ultralytics.com/careers] - **Engineering culture**: AI-first mindset (everyone uses AI tools), high autonomy, open-source contributions, and real-world impact (tools used in robotics, healthcare, etc.). - **Career tracks**: Clear Individual Contributor and Management paths with equivalent compensation; fast promotion cycles tied to Anchor Day participation. [handbook.ultralytics.com/people/careers] ## Sources 1. [ultralytics.com](https://www.ultralytics.com/) – Homepage: platform overview and YOLO models 2. [ultralytics.com/about](https://www.ultralytics.com/about) – Team, values, headcount, founder story 3. [ultralytics.com/careers](https://www.ultralytics.com/careers) – Open roles, perks, culture 4. [handbook.ultralytics.com/introduction](https://handbook.ultralytics.com/introduction) – Work culture, hybrid policy, AI-first mindset 5. [handbook.ultralytics.com/people/careers](https://handbook.ultralytics.com/people/careers) – Career progression framework ## Other roles at Ultralytics - [Enterprise Account Executive](https://feeny.ai/job/enterprise-account-executive-ultralytics-new-york-5s59j0nb33f5) β€” New York, NY - [Enterprise Customer Success Manager](https://feeny.ai/job/enterprise-customer-success-manager-ultralytics-new-york-rypne9deqvnt) β€” New York, NY - [Legal Counsel](https://feeny.ai/job/legal-counsel-ultralytics-london-bhdgsnjpn1hq) β€” London, United Kingdom - [Senior Business Development Representative](https://feeny.ai/job/senior-business-development-representative-ultralytics-london-f2w6w3traswe) β€” London, United Kingdom - [Senior Quality Assurance Engineer](https://feeny.ai/job/senior-quality-assurance-engineer-ultralytics-shenzhen-8qxcnp508h2t) β€” Shenzhen, China - [Solutions Engineer](https://feeny.ai/job/solutions-engineer-ultralytics-new-york-qqqcedgwn1pv) β€” New York, NY - [Senior Full Stack Engineer](https://feeny.ai/job/senior-full-stack-engineer-ultralytics-shenzhen-tjrw4r38mft3) β€” Shenzhen, China - [ML Engineer](https://feeny.ai/job/ml-engineer-ultralytics-shenzhen-4vc5mxf1yskg) β€” Shenzhen, China - [Senior Graphic Designer](https://feeny.ai/job/senior-graphic-designer-ultralytics-madrid-32rdc1920y8p) β€” Madrid, Spain - [LLM Engineer](https://feeny.ai/job/llm-engineer-ultralytics-london-rtqe2z2g44f7) β€” London, United Kingdom