Senior Researcher, ML Distributed Systems

Department: Incubated and Sponsored Projects

Employment Type: Flexible

Location: Remote

Reporting To: Jaime Sevilla

Compensation: $150,000 - $180,000 / year

Description

We will review applications on a rolling basis, and close applications after making a hire. Email careers@epochai.org if you have any questions.

Epoch AI is seeking a specialist in computing hardware to lead investigations into HPC computing for AI workloads. As a ML Distributed Systems Senior Researcher at Epoch, you will collaborate with our team on novel research related to the cost of compute, trends in compute usage and performance, and parallelism techniques and utilization. This work will be crucial for improving our understanding of the future of AI and its impacts on society.

Your day-to-day activities will be researching the latest developments in the field, discussing their implications with our team and international experts, and writing reports that inform our research and policy-making all over the world. Over the course of a year, we anticipate you will have produced 3-4 leading reports on the future of training and inference of frontier ML models.

Some examples of reports and papers you might lead as part of the role include:

An analysis of modern ML parallelism techniques, relating cluster size to achieved efficiency and possible bottlenecks to scaling.
A breakdown of the costs of development of large ML models today.
An analysis of the trends in inference compute and techniques to improve inference efficiency.

The successful candidate will report directly to Epoch AI's director Jaime Sevilla, and work closely with associate director Tamay Besiroglu on models of the future of AI. We welcome both full-time and part-time applicants, with a strong preference for full-time candidates.

Epoch AI is a research institute that investigates trends in machine learning and the economic consequences of AI. Our work informs policy-making at key government institutes and governance at leading industry AI labs.

You can learn more about our work in this summary dashboard or our blog.

Key Responsibilities

Producing reports and papers related to the training and deployment of large ML systems.
Staying abreast of industry trends and emerging technologies in distributed ML systems.
Helping steer Epoch AI’s research program with ideas on researching the future of training and inference of frontier ML models.
Being the go-to expert for staff and stakeholders' queries on distributed ML systems.
Helping run experiments with ML systems to study various topics of interest to Epoch AI.
Possibly, in the future, leading a team of 1-2 other researchers on topics related to distributed systems and ML hardware.

What We Are Looking For

Familiarity with modern machine learning hardware, HPC set-ups and their management.
Familiarity with modern ML parallelism techniques.
Clear communication skills on technical topics.
Intellectual curiosity and open-mindedness.
Two years of experience either researching or engineering distributed ML training or inference.
Experience writing analysis reports or scientific papers.

Industry experience or a PhD on a related topic.
Familiarity with the technical characteristics of hardware used in AI and machine learning.
A network of industry and academia experts on ML distributed systems.
Experience supervising other researchers.

What We Offer

Annual salary between $150,000 and $180,000 USD, pre tax.
The exact salary will be based on the candidate’s prior relevant experience.
Compensation is not restricted to the currencies listed above. Payments may be made in different currencies and payment intervals depending on the location of applicants and legal requirements.
Salaries are converted from USD to local currencies using the average exchange rate from the previous year, and contracts are updated annually with the new one year average.

Flexible work hours and location,
Comprehensive global benefits package (while they vary by country, we make every effort to ensure that our benefits package is equitable and high-quality for all staff)
Generous paid time off leave, including, but not limited to:
- Unlimited vacation with a minimum of 30 days off per year
- Unlimited (within reason) personal and sick leave
- Parental leave - up to 6 months of parental leave during the first 2 years after a child’s birth or adoption for parents of all genders
For more details about our benefits, please see our Benefit Package for Permanent Roles
A caring team that values respectful work relations and a healthy work-life balance
Opportunities to grow/advance your career and engage in professional development

Location: The role is remote and we welcome applicants from all time zones. We prefer candidates available between UTC-8 and UTC+3 time zones, where most of our staff are based, but this is by no means a requirement.
Language: Please submit all of your application materials in English and note that we require professional level English proficiency.
Travel: Travel is not an essential requirement for this position. However, a majority of our staff travel a few times per year for conferences, retreats, and other work-related purposes. In most cases, travel is not mandatory, but encouraged.
Accessibility: We’re committed to running an inclusive and accessible application process. We warmly invite you to reach out to careers@epochai.org with any questions or accessibility requests such as chat box use during interviews.
Inclusivity and fairness: Epoch AI is committed to building an inclusive, equitable, and supportive community for you to thrive and do your best work. We’re committed to finding the best people for our team, so please don’t hesitate to apply for a role regardless of your age, gender identity/expression, political identity, or any other background.
Epoch AI is fiscally sponsored by Rethink Priorities.

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