---
title: 'Research Scientist at Institute of Foundation Models'
canonical: 'https://feeny.ai/job/research-scientist-institute-of-foundation-models-abu-dhabi-hwa9f2rrz7eb'
type: 'job'
last_seen: '2026-09-14'
---

# Research Scientist at Institute of Foundation Models

- **Company:** Institute of Foundation Models
- **Location:** Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates
- **Employment:** full-time
- **Work type:** onsite
- **Posted:** 2025-07-02
- **Last confirmed live:** 2026-09-14
- **Apply:** https://jobs.lever.co/ifm-us/4b367c0c-c1a5-4c3b-b637-5eb9e47a9bcb

## Job description

## About the Institute of Foundation Models

We are a dedicated research lab for building, understanding, using, and risk-managing foundation models. Our mandate is to advance research, nurture the next generation of AI builders, and drive transformative contributions to a knowledge-driven economy.

As part of our team, you’ll have the opportunity to work on the core of cutting-edge foundation model training, alongside world-class researchers, data scientists, and engineers, tackling the most fundamental and impactful challenges in AI development. You will participate in the development of groundbreaking AI solutions that have the potential to reshape entire industries. Strategic and innovative problem-solving skills will be instrumental in establishing MBZUAI as a global hub for high-performance computing in deep learning, driving impactful discoveries that inspire the next generation of AI pioneers.

## The Role

As a Research Scientist with a focus on data-centric large language model (LLM) development, your role will center on advancing the frontiers of how LLMs reason, retrieve, and interact with external information sources. You will proactively identify, collect, and organize datasets that enable LLMs to perform complex reasoning tasks, while also developing scalable systems and tooling that integrate cutting-edge research with robust engineering. Your work will have a direct impact on the performance and reliability of intelligent systems at MBZUAI IFM.

## Key Responsibilities

- Lead research and implementation of reasoning-enhanced LLM capabilities through novel data collection, architecture design, and system integration.
- Design and implement pipelines to collect, curate, and structure open-source and web-scale data relevant to reasoning tasks, ensuring scalability and reproducibility.
- Build robust software to support fine-tuning, evaluation, and deployment of LLMs that interact with structured and unstructured knowledge bases.
- Collaborate with ML researchers to create, test, and evaluate new approaches in information retrieval, agentic search, and RAG (retrieval-augmented generation) pipelines.
- Rapidly prototype tools, APIs, and infrastructure for enabling LLMs to reason over external information, and build datasets for identifying and analyzing LLM failure modes.
- Communicate research findings in internal documents and external publications (e.g., top-tier conferences like ACL, ICLR, NeurIPS).
- Contribute to design/code reviews and foster engineering best practices in a high-performance research environment.
- Represent MBZUAI at conferences and forums, promoting institutional leadership in safe, efficient, and high-impact AI systems.
- Perform all other duties as reasonably directed by the line manager that are commensurate with these functional objectives.

Academic Qualifications

- Master’s in Computer Science, Data Science, or a related technical field, or equivalent practical experience required.
- PhD or equivalent research experience in Machine Learning, NLP, or Data Science with a focus on reasoning and LLMs preferred.

## Minimum Professional Experience

- Experience working with large language models, including fine-tuning, prompt engineering, and multi-modal interaction.
- Strong Python development skills with a focus on research-grade code and scalable data pipelines.
- Familiarity with collecting and processing large-scale datasets from open-source and web resources.
- Demonstrated ability to work with ML infrastructure (e.g., model evaluation, optimization, debugging).
- Proactive mindset with the ability to identify impactful research questions and execute on them with minimal supervision.
- Effective communication and collaboration skills for working in cross-functional teams.

## Preferred Professional Experience

- Experience designing and deploying agentic LLM systems, reasoning benchmarks, or RAG pipelines.
- Background in building complex knowledge retrieval systems (e.g., knowledge graphs, semantic search, indexing).
- Strong publication record in leading AI conferences (e.g., ICLR, ACL, NeurIPS, EMNLP).
- Familiarity with performance constraints in production environments and the trade-offs in model and data design.
- Prior contributions to open-source ML research or data tools.

## About Institute of Foundation Models

## Company Overview
- **One-liner**: The Institute of Foundation Models (IFM) is a global AI research lab dedicated to the open and independent development of frontier-class foundation models, operating under the Mohamed bin Zayed University of Artificial Intelligence (MBZUAI).
- **Entity Type**: Academic Research Institute (part of MBZUAI, a university)
- **Headquarters**: Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates (with labs in Sunnyvale, CA, USA and Paris, France)
- **Founded**: 2026 (launched with Silicon Valley lab)
- **Founders**: Part of MBZUAI, led by President Eric Xing

## Core Business
- **Primary industry**: Artificial Intelligence research, foundation model development, open-source AI
- **Target customers**: Researchers, academia, industry partners, and the global AI community (B2B/Research/Public sector)
- **Mission**: To produce the world’s leading models across modalities while ensuring responsible, open, and socially meaningful impact.

## Products & Services
For each major offering:
- **JAIS Series**: State-of-the-art open-source Arabic LLM covering Modern Standard Arabic and regional dialects, including Moroccan Arabic (Darija). Fully documented training lifecycle.
- **Vicuna**: Lightweight open chatbot surpassing 90% of ChatGPT and Bard quality.
- **K2 (K2-65B)**: Large language model with advanced reasoning capabilities, focusing on sustainable performance. Updated version soon to be released.
- **PAN World Model**: Next-gen foundation model for embodied reasoning and physical-world simulation, integrating multimodal inputs (language, video, spatial data, physical actions). Includes PAN-Agent for multimodal reasoning tasks.
- **FM For Bio – GET**: Domain-specific model for biology.
- **LLM360**: Open-source framework enhancing transparency and collaboration in LLM research, providing training code, datasets, and model checkpoints.
- **Research partnerships**: Collaboration with academia, startups, and enterprises via shared compute, co-publishing, and co-development.

## Market Standing
- **Valuation/Market Cap**: Not applicable (non-commercial research institute)
- **Key Metric**: Funded by MBZUAI; specific budget not publicly disclosed. Notable open-source model releases (JAIS, Vicuna, K2, PAN).
- **Notable Investors/Partners**: MBZUAI, with international advisory boards and peer review processes. Partnerships with industry leaders, academic institutions, and public organizations.
- **Growth Signals**: Launch of Silicon Valley lab in Sunnyvale, CA (2026); expansion into Paris and Abu Dhabi nodes; active hiring for research interns, distributed ML engineers, HPC engineers; release of flagship models (PAN, K2 update).

## Competitive Advantages
- **Openness & transparency**: Full release of training code, datasets, and model checkpoints through LLM360 – one of the most transparent approaches in AI.
- **Global research network**: Three hubs (Abu Dhabi, Silicon Valley, Paris) combining academic rigor with startup agility.
- **Access to large-scale compute**: High-performance computing infrastructure for training frontier models.
- **Multilingual & cultural focus**: JAIS addresses underrepresentation of Arabic and other languages, preserving cultural authenticity.
- **World model innovation**: PAN differentiates from text-only models by predicting comprehensive world states for advanced reasoning and simulation.

## Strategic Focus
- Continue building open, powerful foundation models across language, vision, multimodal, and domain-specific systems.
- Expand global collaboration and talent acquisition, especially in Silicon Valley.
- Advance responsible AI with safety systems and international advisory boards.
- Drive real-world impact through partnerships in scientific discovery, human-AI interaction, and public good.

## Why Work Here
- **Culture**: Collaborative, cutting-edge academic research environment with a mission to open-source AI for global benefit. Teams span Abu Dhabi, Paris, and Silicon Valley.
- **Remote/hybrid/office**: All listed roles are **on-site** (Sunnyvale, CA or Abu Dhabi). No remote policy indicated.
- **Notable perks**: Work with world-class researchers, access to large-scale compute, opportunity to publish and contribute to open-source models. The institute combines the agility of a startup with the resources of an established university.
- **Current openings**: AI Research Internship (LLM), Distributed Machine Learning Engineer, Eval360 Error Analysis Engineer, High Performance Computing Software Engineer (Supercomputing) – all on-site in Sunnyvale or Abu Dhabi.

## Sources
1. [ifm.ai](https://ifm.ai/)
2. [ifm.ai/about](https://ifm.ai/about/)
3. [jobs.lever.co/ifm-us](https://jobs.lever.co/ifm-us)
4. [LinkedIn – Institute of Foundation Models](https://www.linkedin.com/company/institute-of-foundation-models)
5. [MBZUAI News – Launch of IFM and Silicon Valley Lab](https://mbzuai.ac.ae/news/mbzuai-launches-institute-of-foundation-models-and-establishes-silicon-valley-ai-lab/)

## Other roles at Institute of Foundation Models

- [AI Engineer Internship – LLM Data](https://feeny.ai/job/ai-engineer-internship-llm-data-institute-of-foundation-models-abu-dhabi-ryr1w6wpmy2b) — Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates
- [Research Scientist – World Modeling, Data](https://feeny.ai/job/research-scientist-world-modeling-data-institute-of-foundation-models-sunnyvale-bch8rt52tddk) — Sunnyvale, CA
- [Community Development Manager](https://feeny.ai/job/community-development-manager-institute-of-foundation-models-sunnyvale-1ns2xzrzec79) — Sunnyvale, CA
- [Social Media Manager](https://feeny.ai/job/social-media-manager-institute-of-foundation-models-sunnyvale-nppzja97rfm9) — Sunnyvale, CA
- [Content Marketing & Editorial, Sr. Manager](https://feeny.ai/job/content-marketing-editorial-sr-manager-institute-of-foundation-models-sunnyvale-9yeba8pbf82f) — Sunnyvale, CA
- [Senior Communications Consultant](https://feeny.ai/job/senior-communications-consultant-institute-of-foundation-models-sunnyvale-q3waewdeghjx) — Sunnyvale, CA
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