Staff/Principal Research Engineer (AI)

TL;DR

Staff/Principal Research Engineer (AI/Distributed Systems): Building verified data infrastructure and trustworthy data systems with an accent on formal methods, automated reasoning, and AI-driven techniques. Focus on improving correctness, reliability, and engineering velocity of distributed systems at enterprise scale.

Location: Onsite in Menlo Park, CA, USA

Salary: $236,000 – $339,200

Company

A cloud data platform powering the era of the agentic enterprise through modern lakehouse architectures and industry-leading data engineering.

What you will do

• Lead research projects applying formal methods, program analysis, and AI-driven techniques to a cloud data platform.
• Translate research ideas into prototypes and shipped capabilities that improve quality, velocity, and reliability.
• Partner with engineering leaders and product managers to identify high-leverage opportunities.
• Influence the engineering and product roadmap by advising on pragmatic research directions.
• Mentor and uplevel engineering teams by scaling new methods across the organization.
• Contribute to the field through publications, conference participation, and patent filings.

Requirements

• PhD in Computer Science or equivalent research experience.
• Deep expertise in formal methods (model checking, theorem proving, SAT/SMT, program verification).
• Strong background in distributed systems and reasoning about large-scale concurrent systems.
• Practical experience applying modern ML and LLMs to systems problems like code generation or synthesis.
• 8+ years of experience applying theoretical computer science to large-scale software systems.
• Proven track record of technical contributions through publications or open-source work.

Culture & Benefits

• Opportunity to work in a fast-paced, experimental environment focused on redefining the future of work.
• Culture of low-ego individuals thriving in dynamic and ambiguous environments.
• Focus on high-impact deliverables and shipping production-quality research.