Founding Research Scientist, Miscellaneous
Posted on January 21, 2026 (about 16 hours ago)
About the Role
Sophont is a public-benefit corporation building open multimodal foundation models for medicine. Joining Sophont means you are paid to lead and contribute to high-impact medical AI research ultimately aimed to transform healthcare and life sciences. We are looking for exceptional, high-agency ML research scientists who are passionate about using AI to build the future of healthcare. We do not require a background specifically in medical AI.
You will have access to dedicated GPU clusters and work alongside top researchers within Sophont and through external collaborations. This is a fully remote position; Sophont has a preference for candidates based in the United States, and especially the San Francisco Bay Area, but welcomes applications from all locations.
Responsibilities
- Lead, contribute to, and execute efforts to pre-train and fine-tune medical foundation models
- Write papers and publish at top conferences and scientific journals
- Collaborate internally on foundation model projects across medical domains (text, neuroimaging, pathology, genomics, etc.)
- Contribute to external collaborations focused on medical foundation models
- Stay up-to-date with the latest advancements in AI/ML infrastructure and tools, including self-supervised learning, RL, and multimodal training approaches to enhance model capabilities
Qualifications
- 2+ years working on ML projects, including training and fine-tuning ML models for research projects
- Experience training and fine-tuning foundation models
- Experience with PyTorch
- Strong publications or technical blog posts demonstrating impactful work (conference papers, journal articles, open-source write-ups)
- Ability to effectively communicate ML insights and results—verbally, in writing, and through visualizations
- Self-motivated, high-agency, well-organized, and able to debug complex issues with minimal supervision
- Optionally (ranked in preference):
- Familiarity with the medical foundation model space
- Experience and contributions in the open-source ML ecosystem (e.g., HuggingFace, W&B)
- Experience with Discord-based public research communities (e.g., MedARC, EleutherAI, LAION)
Compensation
The expected salary range for this position is $100,000–$300,000 per year, based on factors including qualifications, experience, education, and location. In addition to base salary, employees are eligible for meaningful equity incentives and a comprehensive benefits package.
Benefits and Perks
- Competitive compensation and meaningful equity incentives
- Medical, dental, vision, and basic life insurance coverage
- 401(k) plan with a 4% company match
- Participation in workshops, hackathons, conferences, and other learning opportunities
- Encouragement to publish and open-source work
- Remote work with flexible hours, provided availability during core collaboration hours
- Work with a talented, mission-driven team focused on advancing medical AI to save and improve lives
We are an equal opportunity employer and welcome applicants from all backgrounds.
How to Apply
Please send an email with your CV attached to [email protected] using the subject line '[Your Full Name] CV - Miscellaneous'.
Additional Notes
Sophont welcomes applicants from all locations. If you are based in the United States (especially the San Francisco Bay Area), please indicate your location in your application.