About the Role
We are looking for strong engineers to join our team and own the leaderboards that appear on Vals AI.
You'll be responsible for testing new models against our benchmarks as they're released; covering tasks in law, tax, coding, finance, social mobility, and more. You will analyze error modes of models, evaluate their strengths and weaknesses, and work with our communications team to release results.
Our results are used by startups, enterprises, and research labs alike. We work with all the major foundation model labs, some of the largest financial institutions, and hospital systems in the world. Our work has been featured by the Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, and Bloomberg.
We are building the standard for evaluating the ability of LLMs to perform real-world tasks. You will contribute directly to the leaderboards that make this possible.
What You’ll Do
Evaluate new LLM model releases across the Vals AI suite of benchmarks
Work directly with both open-source and closed-source foundation model labs in evaluating model performance
Use tools like Docent to analyze common failure modes and patterns in model performance
Work directly with our social media team to post interesting findings and results
Add new models and maintain integrations in our model library
Help improve and maintain the infrastructure we use to run benchmarks (agentic and non-agentic).
This role follows the rhythm of model releases. Expect intense sprints in the days following a major launch, and calmer stretches in between releases.
Requirements
Familiarity with the LLMs: You should already be familiar with the space - the current leading models, relative performance across them, how to use large language models in practice.
Strong engineering fundamentals: You can build and ship quickly with high quality. You should have a track record of building things of significant scope (at jobs, side projects, open source, etc.)
Python expertise: Significant experience in Python, especially in a professional setting.
Team collaboration: Experience working in development sprints, Git workflows, and pull request reviews.
Strong work ethic: Willingness to work long hours during model releases and get high-quality results out under tight deadlines.
Location: We are an in-person team based in San Francisco. We will support your relocation or transportation as needed.
Nice-to-Haves
Previous experience with benchmarking large language models, or creating benchmarks
Previous experience working at a startup or starting your own company
Technical writing experience and ability
Machine learning research experience
What We Offer
Highly competitive salary and meaningful ownership. Excellence is well rewarded.
Relocation and transportation support
Health/dental insurance coverage
Lunch and dinner provided, free snacks/coffee/drinks
401K plan
Unlimited PTO
$1,500 housing stipend (within one-mile radius)
Founding team: The core methodology behind this platform comes from NLP evaluation research we conducted at Stanford. We raised a $5M seed from some of the top institutional and angel investors in the valley. Our team has prior work experience at NVIDIA, Meta, Microsoft, Palantir and HRT. Collectively, we have over 300 citations in our published work. Our early team includes Stanford PhDs, ex-Jane Street quants, and the first designer at Snorkel.
Tech stack: We use Python for most things at Vals AI. Our platform is built on Django, with a React frontend. All of the infra is on AWS using CDK for IaC.
What We're Looking For
Learning velocity: The role encompasses a wide variety of tasks. Rather than expecting you to be an expert on Day 1, we are looking for someone who can learn new skills and technologies quickly.
Ownership: Working in a small, talent-dense team, we expect everyone to show initiative to build where it's needed, not where it's asked. We strive for autonomy over consensus.
Intensity: The LLM landscape is constantly changing. Foundation model labs are continuously pushing the frontier. The unicorn companies that will emerge from this technology shift are being built now. Those that win will have an incredibly high speed of execution.
Solution-oriented mindset: We're looking for people who see opportunities to craft solutions at each juncture, not those who pass hard problems to others or admit defeat.
Vals in the Media:
AI tools mostly fumble basic financial tasks, study finds
The Winners (and Losers) of This New Vibe-Coding Benchmark Will Surprise You
OpenAI’s Less-Flashy Rival Might Have a Better Business Model
Meta Announces New AI Model in Major Test of Company’s Ambitions
DeepSeek’s Sequel Set to Extend China’s Reach in Open-Source A.I.
Skills Required
- Familiarity with large language models (LLMs) and current model landscape
- Strong engineering fundamentals and track record of building significant projects
- Significant professional experience in Python
- Experience working in development sprints, Git workflows, and pull request reviews
- Ability and willingness to work in-person in San Francisco (relocation/transport support provided)
- Experience with benchmarking LLMs or creating benchmarks
- Previous startup experience or having started a company
- Technical writing experience
- Machine learning research experience
- Familiarity with Django, React, AWS, and CDK (tech stack)
- Familiarity with tools like Docent for error-mode analysis
What We Do
Vals AI develops independent benchmarks and evaluation systems for leading AI models. It tests models on rigorous, domain-specific real-world tasks spanning finance, law, software, healthcare, coding, and other industries, runs its own evaluations, and creates many benchmarks in-house. Its Vals Index and related reports help organizations compare model performance transparently across specialized tasks and identify the most capable systems for practical use.
