Machine Learning Engineer

Pluralis Research is pioneering Protocol Learning—a fully decentralised way to train and deploy AI models that opens this layer to individuals rather than well resourced corporates. By pooling compute from many participants, incentivising their efforts, and preventing any single party from controlling a model’s full weights, we’re creating a genuinely open, collaborative path to frontier-scale AI.

As an ML Engineer at Pluralis, you'll implement and optimize low-bandwidth model-parallel training systems that enable truly distributed language model development. Your work will directly contribute to creating a more open AI ecosystem where anyone can participate in frontier model development, not just large corporations with massive compute resources.

• Distributed Training Implementation: Build and optimize systems for training large models across heterogeneous hardware connected by low-bandwidth networks.

• Performance Optimization: Implement techniques to reduce communication overhead while maintaining model convergence in challenging network environments.

• Python Proficiency: Strong proficiency in Python, with experience writing clean, maintainable, production-quality code

• Training Infrastructure: Design and develop robust training pipelines that can recover from node failures and network disruptions.

• Model Serving: Create efficient systems for deploying sharded models in a protocol-locked environment.

• Metrics & Monitoring: Develop tools to track training progress, evaluate model quality, and identify bottlenecks in distributed environments.

• Technical Excellence: Master's degree in Computer Science or related field, or equivalent experience. Several years of hands-on ML engineering experience.

• ML Systems Knowledge: Strong understanding of model parallelism techniques, distributed training architectures, and optimization methods.

• Programming Proficiency: Expert-level skills in PyTorch or similar frameworks, with experience scaling models across multiple devices.

• Systems Understanding: Familiarity with networking concepts, distributed computing principles, and performance optimization.

• Bonus: Experience with large language models, high-performance computing, or network-constrained environments.

• Equity-Heavy Package: We offer meaningful ownership or token allocations for key technical contributors.

• Competitive Base: Pluralis is hiring the best.

• Visa Sponsorship: Optional full visa sponsorship and relocation support to either US or Australia.

• Remote-First Culture: Flexible work environment with team members distributed globally. We have two hubs; New York and Melbourne with optional hybrid work if desired.

• Cutting-Edge Domain: Work at the intersection of AI and decentralised systems, tackling some of the most challenging engineering problems in what is about to be one of the largest intersections of two previously non-overlapping fields ever.

• We only hire in Australia and the United States. Visa sponsorship is limited to these countries.

• Applicants must have professional-level English proficiency (written and spoken).

• Pluralis is a remote team across Australia and the US. You’ll need to be comfortable working across timezones and collaborating with a diverse, distributed group.

• Recruiters: we aren’t looking for agency support at this time. We’ll reach out if we need help.

Backed by Union Square Ventures and other tier-1 investors, we’re a world-class, deeply technical team of ML researchers. Pluralis is unapologetically ideological. We view the world as a better place if we are able to implement what we are attempting, and Protocol Learning as the only plausible approach to preventing a handful of massive corporations monopolising model development, access and release, and achieving massive economic capture. If this resonates, please apply.