Machine Learning Researcher, Multimodal LLMs
Bland · San Francisco
About this role
## Machine Learning Researcher — Multimodal LLMs **Location:** San Francisco, CA or Remote ### About Bland At Bland.com, our mission is to empower enterprises to build AI phone agents at scale. Voice is quickly becoming the primary interface between businesses and their customers, and we’re building the models and infrastructure that make those interactions feel natural, reliable, and genuinely human. We’ve raised **$100M** from leading investors including Emergence Capital, Scale Venture Partners, Y Combinator, and founders of Twilio, Affirm, and ElevenLabs. ### The Role Help build Bland’s next-generation **multimodal LLM stack**, combining **speech, text, tools, and real-time reasoning** into a single unified system. You’ll: - Build conversational AI models that power Bland’s agent - Take work from **idea → research → production** - Define how agents **listen, think, and act in real time** - Integrate **streaming audio, tool execution, and dynamic context** into coherent behavior - Deliver systems that serve **millions of calls per day** ### What Makes You a Great Fit - **Strong LLM / Multimodal Background** - Experience with LLMs, multimodal models, or speech-language systems - Deep understanding of prompting, fine-tuning, and alignment techniques - Familiarity with neural audio codecs and modern multimodal LLM techniques - **Fast Experimental Loop** - Ability to go from **idea → dataset → experiment → conclusion in days** - Design experiments that directly answer the question - **Product Intuition** - Strong sense for what makes interactions feel natural vs. robotic - Translate modeling ideas into user-facing improvements - **Builder Mentality** - Ownership from research through deployment - Thrives in ambiguous, fast-moving environments - Cares about impact, not just elegance ### How You Show Up - Think in **systems**, not just models - Obsess over **latency, correctness, and real-world behavior** - Comfortable discarding ideas quickly when data disagrees - Push toward simple abstractions for complex problems ### Bonus Points - Experience with real-time voice systems or conversational AI - Background in tool-using agents or agent frameworks - Experience with multimodal datasets (audio + text + actions) - Contributions to LLM or speech-related research or open source ### Compensation & Benefits - **Salary:** $160,000 – $280,000 - **Meaningful equity** - Full healthcare, dental, vision - Office in **Levi’s Plaza, SF** - High autonomy, high impact ### Additional Information Bland is an **equal opportunity employer** and participates in the **E-Verify** employment verification program. All new hires must complete the **Form I-9** and employment will be verified through E-Verify as part of onboarding.
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