Openrouter
Research Scientist
Remote (US)
Sponsorship not specifiedDetected 7 days ago
SQLBigQueryMachine LearningData EngineeringNLPLLMsStatisticsResearchExperimental Design
About the role
- As a Research Scientist, you will conduct deep, original research that advances how the world understands, evaluates, and routes large language models.
- You'll work with one of the richest datasets in AI: billions of LLM generations spanning every major model, provider, and use case.
Responsibilities
- Own and pursue a research agenda focused on LLM evaluation, model quality, routing optimization, and AI usage patterns, contributing original insights that advance the field.
- Design novel evaluation frameworks and benchmarks that go beyond standard leaderboards, using real-world generation data to capture how models actually perform across tasks and contexts.
- Develop the statistical and mathematical foundations behind our routing systems, building the models and heuristics that power intelligent provider and model selection.
- Collaborate with external researchers, model providers, and the open-source community to advance shared understanding of LLM capabilities and limitations.
- OpenRouter is the leading AI routing and infrastructure layer that developers and enterprises use to access, manage, and optimize the best large language models across providers without lock-in, capacity constraints, or unnecessary cost.
- You'll collaborate with product and engineering teams, but your primary focus is depth and rigor.
Requirements
- Experience & Technical Skills
- Track record of original research, demonstrated by first-author publications, significant open-source contributions, or equivalent impact in industry research.
- Proficiency in SQL for working with large-scale analytical databases (ClickHouse, BigQuery, or similar).
- Familiarity with the current LLM landscape: model architectures, provider ecosystems, benchmark suites, and the strengths and limitations of leading models.
- You can explain complex findings clearly in papers, blog posts, internal memos, and conversations with non-technical stakeholders.
- You work well with product and engineering teams and can translate research insights into actionable recommendations.
- MS or PhD in a quantitative field (machine learning, statistics, computer science, mathematics, computational linguistics, or similar).
- Deep expertise in statistics, experimental design, and causal inference. You can design rigorous studies and reason carefully about validity, bias, and generalizability.
- Strong programming skills in Python. You can build data pipelines, run large-scale experiments, and prototype models efficiently.
- Hands-on experience with modern ML/NLP techniques such as LLM evaluation, fine-tuning, embeddings, classification, or reinforcement learning from human feedback.
- Mindset & Approach
- Deeply curious and self-directed. You identify the most important open questions and pursue them without waiting for direction.
- Rigorous but pragmatic. You hold yourself to high scientific standards while operating at startup speed.
- AI-first in your own workflow. You use LLMs, coding agents, and modern AI tools heavily in your research process and have strong opinions about what works.
- Strong communicator. You can explain complex findings clearly in papers, blog posts, internal memos, and conversations with non-technical stakeholders.
- Collaborative. You work well with product and engineering teams and can translate research insights into actionable recommendations.
Skills
- Your findings will inform OpenRouter's routing intelligence, public rankings, and the broader AI discourse.
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This listing is sourced directly from Openrouter's careers page and normalized into a canonical job model.