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Senior ML Researcher: Multimodal LLM Post-Training

Apple· Software and Services
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Hybrid (Seattle, WA), Hybrid (Cupertino, CA), Hybrid (San Diego, CA)$175k - $308.5kfull-timePosted 1w ago

About the role

Research, design, and deliver multimodal large language models with a focus on post-training techniques (SFT, RL) to improve real-world workflows for creators, integrating Apple's human-centered design principles.

Responsibilities

  • Formulate hypotheses for a use case
  • Define data collection and annotation
  • Build evaluations of model capabilities
  • Apply SFT, advanced reward modeling, RL techniques, and distillation to develop and improve the post-training recipe
  • Execute experiments, validate results, and communicate findings to the broader team
  • Collaborate with research scientists, engineers, and product teams to ship research that impacts products

Qualifications

  • MS in Computer Science, Machine Learning, or a related field, or equivalent practical experience
  • Minimum 4+ years of research experience in Multi-Modal LLM training and evaluation
  • Proven track record in multimodal SFT plus at least one of distillation, preference optimization, or online RL, backed by shipped models or rigorous experiments
  • Strong programming skills in Python and at least one deep learning framework, such as JAX or PyTorch
  • Ability to build intuition from a problem statement and translate it into dataset requirements, neural network design, and loss functions
  • PhD in Computer Science, Machine Learning, or a related field, or equivalent practical experience
  • Experience in GRPO, DPO, Vision-OPD, and visual-token compression
  • Publications in top-tier ML conferences (e.g., NeurIPS, ICML, ICLR, CVPR, ICCV, ECCV)
  • Bonus: Experience in quantization, on-device models and SLM (Small Language Model)

Skills

Required:PythonJAX or PyTorchSFT (Supervised Fine-Tuning)RL techniques / Online RLDistillation / Reward modelingDataset design and annotation

Benefits

  • Comprehensive medical and dental coverage
  • retirement benefits
  • discounted products and free services
  • reimbursement for certain educational expenses (tuition)
  • discretionary bonuses or commission payments as applicable
  • relocation assistance
  • employee stock programs (RSUs)
Last updated Oct 16, 2026. Interested? Apply on the company site.

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