Academic Research Collaborator for AI Model Training

Join a leading AI lab''s cutting-edge GenAI team to be at the core of the AI revolution, where your expertise fuels the development of the most advanced Large Language Models.

This role is designed for Professors and PhD students across all academic disciplines, including STEM fields such as Machine Learning, Coding, Data Science, Computer Science, Physics, Mathematics, Engineering, and Statistics, as well as professional and quantitative domains like Finance, Accounting, Economics, Law, and Business. You will engage in AI model training and evaluation, focusing on writing and assessing MLOps tasks and solutions to generate high-quality training data for frontier AI systems.

Your responsibilities will include designing and validating challenging benchmark tasks aimed at diagnosing reasoning and problem-solving gaps in target models. The work involves building robust, real-world tasks with executable Python tests and analyzing model and agent behavior. Proficiency in Python is required.

This is a W2 employment position with Cincinnatus LLC, providing the opportunity to work at a leading AI Lab as part of their extended workforce. You will collaborate with a team of domain experts to guide the next generation of frontier AI tools.

• Task Design and Development: Create challenging, real-world domain-specific problems from your area of expertise (e.g., financial modeling, legal reasoning, econometrics, ML, coding, scientific computation) that serve as the foundation for agentic tasks, targeting specific core capability loss failures in frontier AI models.
• Spec & Golden Solution Generation: Integrate the problems into an Agentic development environment, preparing all necessary components using Python.
• Evaluation and Analysis: Assess the target model''s performance on the tasks.
• Headroom Identification: Identify tasks where the target model fails to pass all tests, specifically classifying the failure as a logical reasoning failure.

• Current or retired professor, or PhD student, in any of the following areas: STEM (ML, Coding, Data Science, CS, Physics, Mathematics, Engineering, Statistics, Biology, Chemistry) or Professional/Quantitative (Finance, Accounting, Economics, Law, Business).
• Degree (or PhD in progress) from a top university in your field.
• Working proficiency in Python, applied in research, industry, GitHub, or coursework.
• Ability to engage reliably for at least 30 hours/week during weekdays (i.e., at least 6 hours/day during weekdays).
• Preferred past experience in AI training, model evaluation, and data annotation.
• Basic ability to work independently and manage time effectively.
• Strong verbal and written communication skills, problem-solving skills, and interpersonal skills.

This position requires a commitment of at least 30 hours per week during weekdays.

The annual compensation for this role ranges from $80, 000 to $110, 000.

This role is open to candidates located in the United States. Cincinnatus LLC serves as the employer of record, providing W-2 employment, payroll, benefits, and compliance.

Cincinnatus is proud to be an Equal Employment Opportunity employer. We do not discriminate based on any protected characteristic.