---
title: 'Research Engineer - Model Architectures at Zyphra'
canonical: 'https://feeny.ai/job/research-engineer-model-architectures-zyphra-san-francisco-q2xft42gbdne'
type: 'job'
last_seen: '2026-09-06'
---

# Research Engineer - Model Architectures at Zyphra

- **Company:** Zyphra
- **Location:** San Francisco, CA
- **Employment:** full-time
- **Work type:** onsite
- **Posted:** 2026-03-17
- **Last confirmed live:** 2026-09-06
- **Apply:** https://jobs.ashbyhq.com/zyphra/e509d439-ac21-4740-9989-38f385a37da4

## Job description

ZYPHRA IS AN ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE COMPANY BASED IN SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA.

## THE ROLE:

As a Research Engineer - Model Architectures, you will be a core contributor to Zyphra’s AI Architecture Research Team. This will involve designing and rigorously testing novel model architectures and training methodologies, with a focus on improving core modeling capabilities (e.g., loss per flop or loss per parameter) and addressing fundamental bottlenecks in contemporary models. You will also work extremely closely with our pre-training team, who will integrate your insights into our next-generation models.

WHAT WE'RE LOOKING FOR / REQUIREMENTS:

- Strong research taste and intuition
- The ability to work through a research project from conception to execution to write-up
- Strong implementation and prototyping ability can take an idea from conception to experimentation extremely quickly
- The ability to work well and cooperate with others in a high-paced research setting
- Curiosity, interest, and joy in understanding intelligence.

## QUALIFICATIONS / ADDITIONAL SKILLS:

- Previous experience with long-term memory, RAG/retrieval systems, dynamic/adaptive computation, and alternative approaches to credit assignment
- Experience with reinforcement learning, control theory, and signal processing
- Generally, a joy in inventing and seriously assessing ‘crazy’ ideas, and the ability to have a unique perspective on things
- Understanding of modern training pipelines and the hardware requirements to design efficient architectures for GPU hardware
- Strong grasp of proper experimental methodology for running rigorous ablations and other hypothesis testing
- High proficiency with PyTorch and Python.
- Strong ability to jump into large pre-existing codebases and rapidly get up to speed and become productive
- Previously published machine learning research in well-respected venues
- Postgraduate degree in a scientific subject (Computer Science, EE/EECS, Math, Physics)

## WHY WORK AT ZYPHRA:

- Our research methodology is to make grounded, methodical steps toward ambitious goals. Both deep research and engineering excellence are equally valued
- We strongly value new and crazy ideas and are very willing to bet big on new ideas
- We move as quickly as we can; we aim to minimize the bar to impact as low as possible
- We all enjoy what we do and love discussing AI

## BENEFITS AND PERKS:

- Comprehensive medical, dental, vision, and FSA plans
- Competitive compensation and 401(k) plan
- Relocation and immigration support on a case-by-case basis
- In-office snacks and meals provided
- Unlimited PTO and company holidays
- In-person team in San Francisco with a collaborative, high-energy environment

## About Zyphra

## Company Overview
- **One-liner**: Zyphra is a full-stack AI company building open foundation models and a sovereign cloud platform to deliver advanced AI to developers, enterprises, and hyperscalers.
- **Entity Type**: Private, Series A
- **Headquarters**: San Francisco, California, United States
- **Founded**: 2020 (some sources cite 2021)
- **Founders**: Krithik Puthalath (CEO), Beren Millidge (Chief Scientist), Danny Martinelli (Head of Product), Tomás Figliolia (Chief Architect)

## Core Business
- **Primary industry**: Artificial Intelligence / Foundation Models / Cloud AI Infrastructure
- **Target customers**: Developers, enterprises, and "frontier AI hyperscalers" (B2B)
- **Mission or purpose**: "Open Superintelligence" – to enable sovereign, transparent, and customizable AI that runs on any hardware without vendor lock-in.

## Products & Services
- **[Zyphra Research](https://www.zyphra.com/)**: Open-source foundation models trained on heterogeneous compute, focusing on novel architectures for long-term memory, continual learning, and silicon performance. Released as research prototypes.
- **[Zyphra Cloud](https://www.zyphra.com/)**: Full-stack AI platform built on AMD, designed for long-horizon agents. Provides managed infrastructure for deploying, customizing, and running Zyphra's or third-party models with full data sovereignty.

## Market Standing
- **Valuation/Market Cap**: Not disclosed
- **Key Metric**: Total funding of **$11M** (Series A)
- **Notable Investors/Partners**: AMD, Intel Capital, Future Ventures, Bison Ventures, Transpose Platform, and others
- **Growth Signals**:
  - Headcount grew **151.9% YoY** to 53 employees
  - Operates in 5 countries (US, UK, Canada, India, Saudi Arabia) with offices in San Francisco, Palo Alto, and London
  - Active job postings: 14 (up 16.7% quarterly)
  - LinkedIn followers grew 236.3% year-over-year

## Competitive Advantages
- **Full-stack open-source approach**: Combines novel model architectures (probabilistic computing, heterogeneous compute) with a cloud platform optimized for long-horizon AI agents.
- **Hardware agnosticism**: Promises "run intelligence across any hardware and any provider, without lock-in," with early focus on AMD silicon.
- **Commitment to openness**: Models are transparent, allowing customers to audit reasoning and adapt to specific domains.
- **Sovereignty focus**: Enterprises own their models, data, and deployments – appealing to regulated industries.

## Strategic Focus
- **Priority on architecture innovation** (continual learning, long-term memory, silicon performance) over scaling existing methods.
- **Building a full-stack platform** that tightly couples research breakthroughs with a production-grade cloud service.
- **Scaling the team** aggressively – hiring across research engineering, platform, developer relations, and AI engineering.

## Why Work Here
- **Culture of open research**: Employees contribute to novel model architectures that are publicly released, offering a rare blend of academic freedom and product impact.
- **Heavy engineering focus**: 57% of the team is in technical roles, with a flat structure (62% specialist-level roles).
- **Locations**: San Francisco (HQ) and London, with potential for remote-friendly roles (not explicitly stated).
- **Notable perks**: Not detailed publicly, but typical for a well-funded Series A startup (equity, benefits, etc.).
- **Growth trajectory**: 150%+ headcount growth signals rapid scaling and career advancement opportunities.

## Sources
1. [zyphra.com](https://www.zyphra.com/)
2. [zyphra.com about](https://www.zyphra.com/about)
3. [jobs.ashbyhq.com/zyphra](https://jobs.ashbyhq.com/zyphra)
4. [linkedin.com/company/zyphra](https://www.linkedin.com/company/zyphra)
5. [cbinsights.com/company/zyphra](https://www.cbinsights.com/company/zyphra)

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