Thinking Machines Lab
Research Software Engineer, Post Training
San Francisco
Stay score
odds of building a lasting career here
Sponsors, but it's cap-subject — you still face the weighted lottery (~61% per draw at Level IV). Good if you win; have a cap-exempt backup on your list.
Lottery odds assume a STEM candidate.
Personalize to your clock →H-1B wage level
the lottery is wage-weighted — each level is one more entry
This range already reaches Level IV — the maximum four lottery entries.
DOL prevailing wage, 2026-27 wage year · Software Developers (15-1252) · San Francisco-Oakland-Fremont, CA. Wage level is derived by USCIS from the offered wage, occupation and worksite; the occupation shown is inferred from the job title.
Employer immigration record
from this employer's Department of Labor filings
Files H-1B transfers
Sourced from Department of Labor LCA, PERM and prevailing-wage disclosure data. Employer matching is by name, so figures may be split across an employer's legal entities. Absence of a filing means none appears in our copy of the data, not that none exists.
Community outcomes
No reports yet — be the first to help the next applicant.
About the role
- This role is responsible for building and strengthening the engineering foundations that our post-training research teams depend on.
- You'll embed within a research team, and build or improve the systems required for the team to succeed.
- Our research teams are small, and the role carries a corresponding degree of autonomy and responsibility.
Responsibilities
- Design, build, and operate infrastructure research teams depend on, including RL training systems, sandboxing, data pipelines, and agent scaffolding.
- Strong autonomous drive to progress towards the team's goals with an ownership mindset.
- Experience building or iterating with sandboxed or containerized execution environments at a large scale.
- We believe the future worth building is human, and we're hiring people who want to build it.
Requirements
- Experience leading projects end to end, working in large fast-moving codebases, and writing code others have depended and built on.
- Strong proficiency in Python and strong engineering fundamentals, with experience debugging systems that fail intermittently and at scale.
- Clarity in communication, an ability to explain complex technical concepts in writing.
- Experience in a role where the team's priorities set yours, and a track record of success in such a role.
- Embed within a research team to build, harden, and improve the systems and infrastructure required for the team to succeed.
Nice to have
- we encourage you to apply even if you don't meet all preferred qualifications, but preferably some:
Compensation
- Depending on background, skills and experience, the expected annual salary range for this position is $350,000 - $475,000 USD.
Benefits
- Thinking Machines offers generous health, dental, and vision benefits, unlimited PTO, paid parental leave, and relocation support as needed.
- Bachelor's degree or equivalent experience in Computer Science, Machine Learning, Physics, Mathematics, or a related discipline with strong theoretical and empirical grounding.
- Familiarity with at least one deep learning framework (e.g., PyTorch, TensorFlow, or JAX).
Company info
- The mission of Thinking Machines is to build AI that extends human will and judgment.
- We are training frontier models with Inkling, developing Tinker to let people make models their own, and crafting interfaces that broaden human-AI communication.
Visa & Work Authorization
- We sponsor visas.
- While we can't guarantee success for every candidate or role, if you're the right fit, we're committed to working through the visa process together.
This listing is sourced directly from Thinking Machines Lab's careers page and normalized into a canonical job model.