Back-End / Machine-Learning Engineer

About the job Back-End / Machine-Learning Engineer

Protogon Research builds AI models with a deep understanding of the world, and monetizes them through proprietary trading. Our long-term goal is to build superintelligence, which we believe will be the most transformative invention of the 21st century.

We believe that trading is a unique test-bed to develop highly intelligent AI systems. Focusing on trading provides us with several key advantages over other approaches. We can:

• Develop proprietary models and datasets, which helps us avoid the race-to-the-bottom other AI companies are stuck in.
• Rapidly translate technological improvements into increased revenue.
• Focus on building innovative systems without the need for sales, marketing, customer support, or business development.
• Build models optimized for a true understanding of the world, rather than simply replicating human behavior or generating superficially pleasing outputs.

We are a small, lean team of 4 based in Menlo Park, CA, and we're looking for a skilled Back-End / ML Engineer who wants to join us and contribute to building impactful technology.

We find working in-person leads to the most fun, engaging, and creative work, and so this role is in-person at our office in Menlo Park.

Projects You'll Work On

• Expand Data Sources: Integrate new data sources for model training, enhancing the scope and performance of our predictive models.
• Improve Neural Net Architectures: Work on optimizing and advancing our proprietary transformer architecture to increase performance.
• Build Evaluation Frameworks: Develop frameworks for evaluating model performance to ensure reliability and effectiveness.
• Performance Assessment Systems: Create systems to assess and analyze the performance of live trading strategies on exchanges.
• Monitoring and Alerts: Design monitoring systems to detect and alert the team to anomalies with live trading strategies.

What We Offer

• Additional Benefits: 401K, FSA, and HSA options
• Flexible Time Off: Vacation policy, sick days, and holidays

Who You Are

• Experienced Engineer: Strong background in back-end development with expertise in a Python tech stack and a minimum of 2 years of experience.
• ML Savvy: Hands-on experience with machine learning, from theory to practical application, including working with deep learning frameworks, feature engineering, model optimization, and evaluating model performance in real-world settings.
• AI/Financial Markets Enthusiast: Interested in AI, AGI, and financial markets.
• Discreet: Able to handle and protect proprietary technology and strategies with the highest level of confidentiality.
• Takes Ownership: Proactively takes responsibility, drives projects, and contributes effectively within a small, agile team.

Note: We are open to candidates who are interested in an engineering lead role, involving some recruiting and management responsibilities in addition to significant coding work. Compensation will be based on scope of responsibilities and level of experience.

At this time, we are unable to provide visa sponsorship. Candidates must have authorization to work in the United States without requiring sponsorship, now or in the future.

If you are excited to grow with us, push the boundaries of what is possible, and be a part of shaping the future of AI, we'd love to connect!