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Research, ML

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Work setting
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Location type: On-site
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Employment
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Employment type: Full-time
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Team
Research — team source
Department: Research
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Before you apply

Work authorization
Must already have the right to workWhile we cannot guarantee your visa, we have historically been successful in sponsoring candidates from all over the world

What you’ll work on

Full posting
  • Train embedding models for search over the web

  • Design novel transformer-based search architectures

  • Create large-scale datasets and evals

  • Beat the internal state of the art and iterate

From the employer’s posting
train embedding models for perfect search over the web
dreaming up novel transformer-based search architectures
creating datasets, creating evals
beating our internal SoTA, and repeat

What you’ll bring

All qualifications

Core experience

  • Graduate-level ML experience (or exceptionally strong undergrad)
  • Able to code a transformer from scratch in PyTorch
  • Enjoys building large-scale datasets and analyzing data in depth
Qualification wording
You have graduate-level ML experience (or are an exceptionally strong undergrad)
You can code up a transformer from scratch in PyTorch
You like creating large-scale datasets and diving deeply into the data
Apply at Exa

Posting record

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Status in our records
Live
First seen by us
Aug 8, 202688 days ago
Recorded sightings
100
Last seen by us
Nov 4, 2026

These dates show when we found the posting. Check the employer’s website to confirm it is still accepting applications.

How this job compares

Time since we first saw it

Day 88

Up longer than most. Similar jobs usually come down between day 6 and day 69.

From 4,296 similar postings that came down. Coming down is not always a hire.

Exa is hiring

2 open jobs

  • Its jobs tend to stay up a long time
Hiring record

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  • PyTorch
Where the posting names them
- You have graduate-level ML experience (or are an exceptionally strong undergrad) - You can code up a transformer from scratch in PyTorch - You like creating large-scale datasets and diving deeply into the data

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Has Exa posted this job before?

Yes. We’ve followed one other Research, ML job there since June 2026. It came down after 149 days.

  1. San FranciscoCame down after 149 days, first seen Jun 2
  2. This jobUp 88 days so far, first seen Aug 8

About the role

We file this job under ML Engineer, by the work the posting describes.

ML engineers put machine learning models into products. They write the code that trains, ships, serves and monitors models so a recommendation or prediction works for real users.

Postings ask for strong Python and software engineering, a framework such as PyTorch, cloud services, and more and more often experience with large language models.

A data scientist often works out which model to build; an ML engineer makes it run reliably in production.

US government figures for computer and information research scientists

Median yearly pay, May 2025
$140,300
Expected change, 2025 to 2035
21.8% more jobsagainst 3.5% for all jobs

The government has no code for ML engineers, so these figures are for the closest group, computer and information research scientists.

Source: US Bureau of Labor Statistics, Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics (May 2025) and Employment Projections (2025 to 2035). Occupation code 15-1221.

Job description

View original posting ↗

Exa is an applied AI lab building a search engine unlike the world has ever seen. We build massive-scale infra to crawl the entire web, train state-of-the-art embedding models to process it, and design super high performant vector databases to retrieve over it. We now power search for Cursor, Cognition, HubSpot, and over 400,000 developers and have raised $350m from Lightspeed, Benchmark, and a16z.

 

Our ultimate goal is to build perfect search over all the world's information, far beyond Google. If you want to build massive-scale ML systems that will define the way the new AI world consumes information, this is the place for you.

 

Research at Exa

 

The ML organization sits at the heart of our mission. We train foundational models for search. Our goal is to build systems that can instantly filter the world's knowledge to exactly what you want, no matter how complex your query. Basically, put the web into an extremely powerful database.

 

We're looking for an ML Research Engineer to train embedding models for perfect search over the web. The role involves dreaming up novel transformer-based search architectures, creating datasets, creating evals, beating our internal SoTA, and repeat.

 

Desired Experience

  • You have graduate-level ML experience (or are an exceptionally strong undergrad)

  • You can code up a transformer from scratch in PyTorch

  • You like creating large-scale datasets and diving deeply into the data

  • You care about the problem of finding high quality knowledge and recognize how important this is for the world

 

Example Projects

  • Pre-training: Train a hundred billion parameter model

  • Fine-tuning: Build an RLAIF pipeline for search

  • Dream up a novel architecture for search in the shower, then code it up and beat our best model's top score

  • Build an eval system that answers: How do we know we're advancing our search quality? (this is an incredibly difficult question to answer)

 

Logistics

  • Location: This is an in-person opportunity in Singapore.

  • Visas: We’re happy to sponsor international candidates! While we cannot guarantee your visa, we have historically been successful in sponsoring candidates from all over the world. If you receive an offer, our team will work hard to get you a visa.

  • Benefits: We offer premium healthcare benefits (medical, dental, vision), fertility benefits, 16 weeks of fully paid parental leave for all new parents, and a monthly wellness stipend to all of our employees.

Exa is an equal opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, creed, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, national origin, disability, age, veteran status, marital status, pregnancy or related conditions, criminal histories consistent with applicable law, or any other basis protected by applicable law.

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Location & working pattern

Singapore

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Work authorization
- Location: This is an in-person opportunity in Singapore. - Visas: We’re happy to sponsor international candidates! While we cannot guarantee your visa, we have historically been successful in sponsoring candidates from all over the world. If you receive an offer, our team will work hard to get you a visa. - Benefits: We offer premium healthcare benefits (medical, dental, vision), fertility benefits, 16 weeks of fully paid parental leave for all new parents, and a monthly wellness stipend to all of our employees.

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