
Research Engineer, Orchestral at Mistral (Paris, France)
Mistral· Paris, France·
Role details
Mistral at a glance
A French AI lab building open and frontier-grade large language models, with the full developer and enterprise stack around them.
Mistral is a French AI lab that builds open and frontier-grade large language models and sells the full stack around them: developer tooling, an agent studio, consumer and enterprise apps like Le Chat and Vibe, custom model training, and its own GPU compute. Its edge is deployment control, with open weights, EU hosting, and self-hosting for regulated and sovereign buyers.
$3B+ raised · latest: Series C · 1.7B euros · Sept 2025 · backed by ASML, Nvidia, Andreessen Horowitz, DST Global
Job description
About Mistral
Mistral provides full-stack AI solutions: from frontier models to developer tools, applications, and compute. We partner with enterprises tackling the hardest problems across high-stakes industries like finance, manufacturing, defense, healthcare, and the public sector, co-creating customized AI systems that they can run on their terms. We are a dynamic, collaborative team passionate about AI and its potential to transform society. Our diverse workforce thrives in competitive environments and is committed to driving innovation. Our teams are distributed between Europe, North America, Asia and the Middle East. We are creative, low-ego and team-spirited.
As a Research Engineer on the Orchestral team, you will help build the agentic platform we use to train and evaluate our models. Orchestral is the system our researchers rely on to run training and evaluation at scale — from the rollout engine that powers agentic workflows to the infrastructure that keeps their workloads running reliably. What you build becomes the foundation the whole science team works on. Your work will span the platform's core: the library, tooling, abstractions and rollout engine — including new capabilities like long-running tasks, subagents and RL features — and the machinery that runs data and jobs at scale, with a focus on resiliency, routing and request handling. You will own significant pieces end to end, from design to production. This is a software engineering role rather than an ML or infrastructure-operations one: RL or PyTorch experience is not required, and you will spend your time building the platform, not operating it. You will be building a distributed RL system, with the scientists as your users.
What You Will Do
- Design and build the core of the Orchestral platform: the library, abstractions and tooling researchers use to train and evaluate models.
- Build and evolve the rollout engine, shipping new capabilities such as long-running tasks and subagents.
- Run Orchestral as a production system: keep training and evaluation workloads reliable at scale.
- Improve how data and jobs flow through the platform as usage grows — scheduling, routing and request handling.
- Treat researchers as your users: understand their workflows and turn recurring needs into robust, shared tooling.
- Raise the bar on engineering quality across the platform: testing, code review, CI/CD, observability and documentation.
- Contribute to open-source rollout-engine and agent-infrastructure projects where it benefits the platform.
What We're Looking For
- Experience directly building and debugging complex distributed systems at scale, with an emphasis on reliability and scalability.
- Strong Python skills and solid software-design instincts: testing, code review, CI/CD.
- A builder mindset: you have constructed systems from the ground up, not just operated polished ones.
- A track record in small teams running complex systems at scale — for example in finance, crypto or ad tech.
- Self-starter, low-ego and collaborative, with a product mindset toward your users.
- Curiosity about ML and RL — this experience is not required, but a desire to learn is.
Nice-to-haves
- Hands-on experience with Ray or similar distributed-computing frameworks.
- Open-source contributions, especially to rollout-engine or agent-infrastructure projects such as SLIME, verl or PrimeRL.
- Experience building or working with agentic workflows and environments.
What We Offer
We offer a comprehensive benefits package designed to support your well-being, growth, and work-life balance. Benefits vary by country and may include healthcare coverage, parental leave, retirement plans, relocation support, wellness programs, meal and transportation allowances, and other location-specific perks. For the most up-to-date details on benefits available in your location, please refer to our Benefits page.
Privacy Policy Your privacy matters to us. You can learn more about how we handle your personal data in our Applicant Privacy Policy.
Why work at Mistral
- Culture: Flat structure, high ownership, low ego, and a "builders, not order takers" mentality. The company values audacity, speed, rigor, and customer centricity.
- Remote/Hybrid/Office: Based in Paris (15 rue des Halles); relocation support and visa sponsorship offered. Specific remote/hybrid policy not detailed, but global team suggests flexibility.
- Notable perks and benefits (from careers page):
- 20 weeks paid parental leave for all birthing parents.
- 100% employer-sponsored medical, dental, and vision coverage for employees and dependents.
- 6% 401k match (US) / 5% pension contribution (UK).
- Childcare support (reserved daycare seats or financial assistance).
- Meal allowances and transportation support.
- Fitness and wellness subsidies.
- Relocation and settling-in services.
- Financial and career planning support.
- Team composition: 900+ employees from 30+ nationalities; 50% female leaders.
- Interview process: For science, product, and engineering roles: intro conversation → 2-5 technical exercises → 1-3 interviews (hiring manager + teammates) → values conversation → reference checks.