Senior​/ML Research Engineer

Senior or Staff Machine Learning Engineer

About us:

Lighten envisions a future where clinical data can drive the next generation of human health breakthroughs -- from uncovering personalized treatment insights, to accelerating drug discoveries and driving adoption of innovative therapies. Lighten builds AI-native software platforms to transform raw clinical data into the highest quality patient journeys to accelerate evidence generation for R&D and bring life‑saving therapies to the market faster.

We partner with and empower life sciences and healthcare organizations to deliver on their mission for the benefit of the patients they serve.

We offer competitive salary and employee equity options, 3% company‑sponsored 401(k) contributions, and comprehensive medical, dental and vision insurance for employees and their families.

• Research, architect, develop, and validate novel ML systems, including large language models (LLMs), tailored for complex healthcare data use cases.
• Stay up‑to‑date with and translate the latest advancements in ML technologies into production use cases.
• Take ownership of end‑to‑end ML pipelines and iterate quickly.
• Collaborate closely with our clinical and product engineering team to make 10X impact.
• Deploy ML pipelines into cloud environments to ensure scalability, low latency and performance.
• Work in person in San Mateo, CA at least 3‑4 days a week.

• 5+ years of professional experience in machine learning, reinforcement learning and/or large language models. Strong knowledge of statistical and deep learning techniques and architectures.
• Bonus if you have extensive experience working with clinical data.
• Bonus if you have a track of record of publications in top ML conferences and journals.
• Exceptional problem‑solving skills and ability to independently tackle challenging problems.
• An incredible team player who thrives in a lean, super fast‑paced environment.

We are proud to be an Equal Employment Opportunity employer and are committed to building a team that represents a variety of backgrounds, perspectives, and skills. We embrace diversity and provide equal employment opportunities to all employees and applicants for employment. We prohibit discrimination and harassment of any type on the basis of race, color, religion, age, sex, national origin, disability status, genetics, protected veteran status, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, or any other characteristic protected by federal, state, or local law.

All employment is decided on the basis of qualifications, performance, merit, and business need.