Researcher / Senior Researcher

Job description

Epoch AI is seeking researchers and senior researchers to improve society's understanding of AI capabilities and their trajectories. ### About the role Epoch researchers examine the driving forces behind AI, track the progress of AI capabilities, and measure and forecast its impact. They help define future research directions and open new investigations into trends that matter. Eight teams are currently hiring researchers and senior researchers, descriptions below. We are a fully remote organization, and we’re able to hire in many countries from Pacific Time to Central European Time. We invite anyone who is interested to apply, regardless of background, experience, or credentials. Please do not include a cover letter, photograph, or headshot of yourself, or any personal information that is not relevant to the role for which you're applying (including marital status, age, identity traits, etc.). The researcher/senior researcher role will remain open, as we’re always looking for exceptional people to join our teams. ### Data and Trends Researchers - **Data Center Team** Data center researchers will produce data insights and reports about frontier AI data centers, and improve the methodology behind the [AI Data Centers explorer](https://epoch.ai/data/ai-data-centers). Potential research topics include the data center buildout across countries, constraints to the buildout, and estimating the kind of chips inside different data centers. Depending on fit, the role may include managing contractors who analyze individual data centers. - **Supply Chain Team**Supply chain researchers will investigate the supply chain for compute and other AI inputs. From [components](https://epoch.ai/data/ai-chip-components) to [owners](https://epoch.ai/data/ai-chip-owners?view=graph&tab=h100_equivalents), where are all the chips in the world, who is using them and how are [they being paid for](https://epoch.ai/data-insights/hyperscaler-capex-vs-cash-flow)? What is the trajectory for the future? Outputs include [data explorers](https://epoch.ai/data), [data insights](https://epoch.ai/data-insights), and [reports](https://epoch.ai/publications?type=paper&type=report). - **Polling & Experiments Team**Polling and experiments researchers will design and analyze polls, RCTs, and other behavioral data on AI usage. Their work will investigate the impacts of AI, uplift, and the strategic landscape of AI. ### Insights Researchers - **Special Projects Team** Special projects researchers will run self-contained exploratory investigations into new questions for Epoch, publishing the results as reports or newsletter posts. The most promising directions may later be developed by other teams into lasting products. Examples of past and current topics include: what [job listings](https://epoch.ai/gradient-updates/ai-lab-job-postings) reveal about frontier labs, how quickly [robot production](https://epoch.ai/publications/how-fast-could-robot-production-scale-up) could scale, indicators for how much AI R&D has been automated, estimates of the amount and cost of available training data, and whether we can detect that a model was distilled from another. - **Gradient Updates Team** Researchers for [Gradient Updates](https://epochai.substack.com/s/gradient-updates/?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=menu) will focus on analyzing big-picture questions about AI progress and its societal impacts, e.g. understanding the [factors](https://epochai.substack.com/p/the-least-understood-driver-of-ai) that impact the chances of rapid recursive self-improvement, what compute constraints mean for [US-China AI competition](https://epochai.substack.com/p/keeping-up-with-the-gpts), and the [future of AI benchmarks](https://epochai.substack.com/p/rip-classic-reasoning-benchmarks). They will then write up their findings and share them broadly via Epoch's newsletter, to help inform discourse and key decision-making about the future of AI. ### Benchmarking Researchers - **Benchmarking Team** Benchmarking researchers will create, run, and analyze benchmarks that measure important AI capabilities. Our benchmarks focus on areas of economic import as well as capabilities pertaining to highly impactful dynamics, like recursive self-improvement. Areas where we are excited to build benchmarking include: AI R&D, general mathematical and scientific discovery, long horizon strategic reasoning, cybersecurity, computer use, and multimodal/spatial reasoning. - **Benchmarking Reviews Team** Benchmark reviewers will work on a new project to review and certify benchmarks. This will involve researching individual benchmark quality and public writeups of the results. The role may also expand to include writing guides for benchmark development, and there is flexibility to spend some time on direct benchmark development. - **Epoch Capabilities Index (ECI) and Capability Trends Team**ECI and capability trends researchers will work on maintaining, improving, and extending the [ECI](https://epoch.ai/eci) and other projects to better understand model capabilities and trends. Examples of potential projects include extending our [analysis of trend breaks](https://epoch.ai/publications/have-ai-capabilities-accelerated), incorporating inference compute into scaling laws, or running experiments on AI models. Statistics background useful but not required. ### What we're looking for While each team has specific skills and experience in mind, we value these skills in particular across the board: - **Curiosity and learning speed**. You rapidly absorb new information across diverse domains and stay at the forefront of a fast-moving field. You seek out new research and enjoy diving into unfamiliar topics. - **Rigorous reasoning under uncertainty.** You make quantitative estimates with limited information and reason clearly about uncertainty. - **Familiarity with AI trends**. - Excellent written and verbal **communication skills**. - Outstanding candidates might have **prior experience in research areas** similar to Epoch’s field; experience in at least one part of the AI development pipeline (hardware, datacenters, benchmarks, etc.); or relevant experience in related organizations. If you don’t tick all these boxes but think you would be a great fit, please consider applying anyway! ### Compensation & Benefits - Researcher: annual salary between $115,000 and $185,000 USD. Senior Researcher: annual salary between $168,000 and $300,000 USD. Exact salaries depend on seniority and location. We are willing to pay above these ranges for exceptional candidates in key locations. - Salaries are not restricted to USD, and contracts and payments are usually in local currencies. Conversions are based on one-year average exchange rates. - Fully remote environment, including flexible work hours and schedules for most roles; paid access to local coworking space as desired. - Competitive global benefits program, including a comprehensive health insurance program—including supplemental benefits specific to a local country, as available and mandated by local law—and life insurance and a pension plan, if applicable in your country. - Generous paid time off (PTO), including no specific annual limit, with 30 days PTO per year protected, unlimited personal and sick leave, and 4 months paid parental leave for permanent staff with at least 12 months of tenure (prorated parental leave if less than 12 months). - A flexible and generous expense policy for you to spend on equipment and a large range of productivity tools or learning/development opportunities you might find valuable, subject to regulations and manager approval. - Access to our very well-equipped offices in Berkeley, California, including paid meals, snacks, gym, and more. ### Additional Information While we welcome applicants from all time zones, we prefer candidates who can overlap with UTC–8 (Pacific Time) and UTC (Greenwich Mean Time), as most of our staff work in this range of time zones. We also prefer candidates who can travel: we hold three retreats per year. Please submit all of your application materials in **English** and note that we require professional level English proficiency. Epoch is committed to building an **inclusive, equitable, and supportive** community for you to thrive and do your best work. We’re committed to finding the best people for our team, so please don’t hesitate to apply for a role regardless of your age, gender identity/expression, political identity, personal preferences, physical abilities, veteran status, neurodiversity or any other background. Please **email** [careers@epoch.ai](mailto:careers@epoch.ai) if you have any questions about this role, accessibility requests, or if you want to request an extension to the application deadline. However, we will not review applications submitted to this email address; please submit your application through the link on this page. ### About Epoch AI Epoch AI is a research institute that investigates trends in machine learning and the economic consequences of AI. Our mission is to develop a comprehensive, publicly accessible knowledge base on AI that informs policymakers, industry leaders, and society at large. We strive to achieve both rigor and accessibility to our work, as exemplified by some of our most successful projects, including our [database of AI models](https://epochai.org/data) and our [AI trends dashboard](https://epochai.org/trends). Our body of research includes our work on [compute trends](https://epochai.org/blog/compute-trends) (IJCN 2022), [data scarcity](https://epochai.org/blog/will-we-run-out-of-data-limits-of-llm-scaling-based-on-human-generated-data) (ICML 2024), and [algorithmic progress](https://arxiv.org/abs/2403.05812) (NeurIPS 2024). You can read more about our work and mission on our [website](https://epoch.ai/about) and in [this Time profile](https://time.com/6985850/jaime-sevilla-epoch-ai/).