Founding Research EngineerPhysical AI
San Francisco Bay Area·$180k – $250k base + bonus + equity
Design engineering benchmarks, training environments, and evaluations that improve frontier models in mechanical engineering, robotics, manufacturing, building design, and CAE.
About Steadyworks
Steadyworks is a data research lab powering the next generation of AI. We partner with frontier AI labs to build expert-grade datasets, reinforcement learning environments, and evaluation infrastructure that improve state-of-the-art models. Our team previously built frontier AI systems at Meta, Google Research, Autodesk, and other leading organizations.
What you'll work on
You'll work at the intersection of computational geometry, CAD, FEA simulation, design for manufacturing, and AI research, collaborating directly with our research team and with researchers at frontier AI labs.
- Build realistic datasets and environments for pre-training, mid-training, and post-training in mechanical engineering, robotics, and building design
- Design challenging real-world tasks that measure and improve agent capabilities
- Develop scalable infrastructure for large-scale evaluation and data generation
- Build tooling that converts expert workflows into high-quality RL environments and training data
- Publish and share new evaluation methodologies and agent workflows
We're looking for someone who
- Has 3+ years of experience building AI tools, infrastructure, or agents for mechanical CAD, manufacturing, or building design
- Has strong working knowledge of B-rep geometry, NURBS curves and surfaces, and solid modeling fundamentals, plus familiarity with CAD interchange formats (STEP, IGES, Parasolid)
- Keeps up with research in the field and enjoys turning ideas into production-quality systems
- Thrives in ambiguous, fast-moving environments with significant ownership
Nice to have
- Experience with reinforcement learning, LLM agents, or dataset and benchmark development
- Open source contributions or published research
- A background in mechanical engineering, robotics, or CAD/CAE tools
Why Steadyworks
Our vision is to become the category-defining data research lab for frontier AI. As one of our first research hires, you'll have outsized ownership over the company's technical direction and the products frontier AI labs use. We're especially excited to talk with former founders and builders who want to work on hard technical problems.
Compensation and benefits
- $180k–$250k base salary, plus performance bonus and 0.5%–1% equity
- Multiple health insurance options, including one with 100% of premiums covered
- Full visa sponsorship: if we make you an offer, we handle the process end to end so you can focus on the work
How to apply
Email careers@steadyworks.ai with anything that shows your work: GitHub, papers, a project write-up, or a demo.
Introduce yourself