Research Engineer (General)
Quick facts
- Type
- Full-time
- Location
- San Francisco, California
- Skills
- Python, Docker, Linux
- Industry
- Information Technology — 671 open jobs
- Apply
- Free to apply — never pay anyone for a job offer or visa sponsorship
Job description
Job Description
About HUD
HUD is building infrastructure to create RL training data and evals for frontier AI agents, as well as a marketplace to sell these to frontier labs through the HUD marketplace. Our platform is used by frontier labs, Fortune 500 companies, and startups. We've raised $16M from top VCs and were YC W25.
About The Role
This is a general application for candidates who are unsure which research focus - QC Automation, Benchmarks, or Synthetic Data - they would be a fit for. We would love to meet you and figure it out together. However, if you already have a focus in mind, please apply to only that application.
We're looking for Research Engineers to build the technical foundation for training and evaluating frontier AI agents. You'll build the systems for creating new environments, improve data quality, and translate real-world workflows into tasks and benchmarks.
Responsibilities
- Build systems for creating, running, evaluating, and improving agent training environments
- Design experiments to understand model behavior, agent failure modes, and data quality issues
- Develop tools that help researchers, engineers, and data vendors create higher-quality tasks, trajectories, and feedback loops
- Work across the full lifecycle of agent training data - task design, environment setup, trajectory collection, evaluation, and validation
- Partner with external vendors to identify bottlenecks and improve the quality and throughput of HUD's data engine
- Build metrics and analyses that help us understand whether our tasks, environments, and evals are actually useful for training frontier agents
Experience
You may be a good fit if you have:
- Proficiency in Python, Docker, and Linux environments
- Experience working on benchmarks and evals - you can reason about what makes a task realistic, a rubric reliable, an environment usable, and a trajectory useful for RL training
- Strong attention to detail and the ability to spot subtle inconsistencies in data, model behavior, or task design
- Experience building tools, pipelines, experiments, or infrastructure without a fully prescribed roadmap
- Early-stage startup experience with ability to work independently in fast-paced environments
Strong Candidates May Also Have
- Experience building internal tools, research infrastructure, or data pipelines
- Experience designing metrics and validation workflows
- A background in competitive programming, Olympiad medaling, research, or unusually strong independent project experience
- Thrive in unstructured problem spaces
- Strong communication skills for remote collaboration across time zones
We prioritize technical aptitude and learning potential over years of experience. Motivated candidates are encouraged to apply even if they don't meet all criteria.
Team & Company Details
- Team Size : 15 people currently, mostly full-time in person, but some remote.
- Our team: Our team includes 4 International Olympiad medalists (IOI, ILO, IPhO), serial AI startup founders, and researchers with publications at ICLR, NeurIPS, etc.
- Company stage: We have 8 figures in funding and high revenue growth. We're scaling profitably and quickly to meet very strong demand.
Logistics
- Employment : Full-time.
- Location : On-site in the San Francisco Bay Area.
- Visa Sponsorship : We provide support for relocation and visas for strong full-time candidates to the US.
- Timeline : Applications are rolling. The process is 2 technical interviews and a 2-3 day work trial.
What we offer
- Competitive compensation based on experience and location
- 100% covered top-of-the-line medical, dental, and vision from Blue Shield of CA
- Lunch and dinner when you're in the office
- Company-wide holiday break (Christmas Eve to New Year's Day) on top of PTO and paid holidays
- Other perks including an Equinox membership, 401k, and commuter benefits
- Unlimited* access to tokens for ChatGPT, Claude Code, Cursor, etc. *By unlimited, we mean no one on our token usage leaderboard has ever hit a limit. So we have no idea what the limit is.
Due to high volume, we may not actively respond to every application, but feel free to contact us at [[email removed]](mailto:[email removed]) or elsewhere if we missed your application!
Visa sponsorship record
No public sponsorship records foundWe didn't find H-1B, H-1B1, E-3 or green card (PERM) filings under the name HUD app in the Department of Labor and USCIS data. That doesn't mean the job can't be sponsored — the company may file under a different legal name, be new to sponsorship, or sponsor a visa that isn't in these datasets (for example H-2B or J-1).
Tip: ask the recruiter early, in writing, which visa they sponsor and whether they cover the legal and filing fees.
Which visas can work for this job
Occupation: Engineers, All Other (SOC 17-2199) — estimated from the job title.
- H-1B cap-exempt employer
Regular cap-subject employer — a new H-1B needs to win the lottery in March (unless you already hold cap-counted H-1B status).
- TN (citizens of Canada and Mexico)
This kind of role may fit the USMCA profession “Engineer” — it depends on the actual duties. No lottery, no cap; you need the matching degree or license.
- E-3 (Australia) and H-1B1 (Chile, Singapore)
Same degree requirement as H-1B, but no lottery and a separate quota that is rarely filled.
- O-1 (extraordinary ability)
For candidates with awards, publications, press, a high salary or critical roles at distinguished organizations. No cap, no lottery; the employer files a petition.
- STEM OPT extension (F-1 students)
Requires an E-Verify employer. We didn't find this company in the E-Verify list — ask HR.
Salary vs prevailing wage
Below Level IEngineers, All Other · San Francisco-Oakland-Fremont, CA. Annual prevailing wages set by the Department of Labor (OFLC).
| Level | Prevailing wage | H-1B lottery odds* |
|---|---|---|
| Level I | $98,051 | ~15% |
| Level II | $130,146 | ~31% |
| Level III | $162,261 | ~46% |
| Level IV | $194,355 | ~61% |
This job pays $33,280 a year (converted from an hourly rate, 2,080 hours) — below the Level I prevailing wage. For H-1B the employer must pay at least the prevailing wage, so the offer would have to go up.
* Odds are DHS projections for the FY2027 wage-weighted lottery (actual results vary by year and employer). Since the FY2027 cap season the H-1B lottery is weighted by wage level: Level I = 1 entry, II = 2, III = 3, IV = 4. The level is set by the offered wage against the prevailing wage for the occupation and worksite. Separately, a $100,000 fee for new H-1B petitions for workers outside the US was announced in 2025; as of September 2026 a federal court ruling keeps it unenforceable while appeals continue — check the current status.
Sources: U.S. Department of Labor OFLC disclosure data (H-1B/H-1B1/E-3 LCA, PERM), OFLC prevailing wage data, USCIS H-1B Employer Data Hub, E-Verify participating employers. Data loaded: LCA FY2024–FY2026, PERM, USCIS Data Hub, OFLC wages; updated 2026-10-03. Employers are matched by name, so records of companies with similar names can occasionally be mixed up. This is general information, not legal advice — talk to an immigration attorney about your case.