Boston, Massachusetts, United States · Hybrid
$115k–$200k/yr
About Absentia Labs Absentia Labs is building intelligent systems that sit at the intersection of AI, biology, chemistry, and large-scale engineering. Our goal is to translate complex scientific data into machine intelli…
Skills: PyTorch, Large Language Models, Diffusion Models, Graph Neural Networks, Distributed Training
Sign up with Clera and we'll reach out the moment a role actually fits you — no more spraying applications into the void.
Lead the design, training, and deployment of large-scale machine learning models including LLMs, diffusion models, and GNNs. Own end-to-end training pipelines and optimize distributed systems to translate scientific data into machine intelligence.
Requires 5+ years of industry experience in ML/AI with a proven track record of training large-scale models in production environments. Proficiency in PyTorch and a deep understanding of distributed training and software engineering fundamentals are essential.
Absentia Labs is building intelligent systems that sit at the intersection of AI, biology, chemistry, and large-scale engineering. Our goal is to translate complex scientific data into machine intelligence capable of reasoning, generalizing, and driving discovery.
Biomedical data is fragmented, noisy, and deeply interconnected. Turning it into a useful signal requires not only strong data foundations but also carefully designed learning systems that can scale across modalities, tasks, and uncertainty regimes. This role focuses on building and training those systems.
As a Senior AI/ML Engineer, you will lead the design, training, and deployment of large-scale machine learning models that form the core of Absentia Labs’ AI capabilities. You will work at the boundary between model architecture, training systems, and production infrastructure, with significant ownership over technical direction.
This role is intended for engineers who have trained large models in real production environments, understand the realities of scale, and can reason about both learning dynamics and systems constraints.
Design, train, and evaluate large-scale models, including Large Language Models (LLMs), diffusion models, and Graph Neural Networks (GNNs).
Own end-to-end training pipelines, from dataset interfaces and batching strategies to distributed training and checkpointing.
Make principled decisions about model architecture, objective functions, optimization strategies, and scaling laws.
Build and optimize distributed training systems (data parallelism, model parallelism, sharding, mixed precision).
Collaborate closely with data engineers to define ML-ready datasets and streaming interfaces.
Translate ambiguous scientific or product requirements into robust ML solutions.
Drive model evaluation, ablation, and iteration with a focus on generalization, stability, and reproducibility.
Contribute to architectural decisions around model serving, inference efficiency, and lifecycle management.
Provide technical leadership through design reviews, mentorship, and cross-team collaboration.
You are a senior ML engineer who thinks holistically about models as systems. You are comfortable operating under uncertainty, making trade-offs between compute, data, and performance, and owning outcomes from research through production.
You care deeply about training dynamics, failure modes, and scaling behavior, and you have the scars to prove it.
5+ years of industry experience in machine learning or applied AI roles.
Demonstrated experience training large-scale models in production settings, not just prototypes.
Hands-on expertise with LLMs, diffusion models, and/or GNNs.
Strong proficiency in PyTorch (or equivalent deep learning frameworks).
Deep understanding of distributed training, including parallelism strategies and performance optimization.
Experience working with large datasets and high-throughput data pipelines.
Strong software engineering fundamentals: clean code, testing, reproducibility, and debugging at scale.
Ability to clearly communicate technical trade-offs to both technical and non-technical stakeholders.
Experience with reinforcement learning, fine-tuning, or preference-based optimization (e.g., RLHF).
Familiarity with model compression, distillation, or inference optimization.
Experience deploying models in production inference systems.
Exposure to multimodal learning or foundation models.
Prior work in startups or fast-moving R&D environments.
Contributions to open-source ML frameworks or research codebases.
Note: Prior experience with molecular or biomedical models is not required. We value strong ML systems experience and the ability to transfer learning across domains.
Competitive compensation, including meaningful equity participation, allows you to share directly in the long-term success and growth of the company.
The opportunity to work on foundation-level ML systems applied to real scientific problems.
Ownership over model design and training strategy, not just implementation.
Close collaboration with data, infrastructure, and scientific teams.
High autonomy, low bureaucracy, and a culture that values technical depth.
Flexible remote or hybrid work arrangements.
Please submit your resume and a brief note describing your experience training large-scale models. Links to GitHub repositories, papers, or technical write-ups are encouraged.
Absentia Labs is an equal opportunity employer. We believe diverse teams build better systems and stronger science, and we encourage applicants from all backgrounds to apply.
Making Drug Discovery Predictable
Absentia Labs is building the AI foundation for engineering better medicine. We develop models that learn the hidden rules behind successful drugs and turn them into repeatable, programmable outcomes. By closing the loop between data, design, and decision-making across the entire drug development pipeline, we enable teams to simulate, iterate, and optimize at unprecedented computational scale and speed. Our mission is to create high-confidence, engineering-driven processes for turning molecules into medicines.
Offices: Boston, Massachusetts 02143, US
Making Drug Discovery Predictable
Absentia Labs is building the AI foundation for engineering better medicine. We develop models that learn the hidden rules behind successful drugs and turn them into repeatable, programmable outcomes. By closing the loop between data, design, and decision-making across the entire drug development pipeline, we enable teams to simulate, iterate, and optimize at unprecedented computational scale and speed. Our mission is to create high-confidence, engineering-driven processes for turning molecules into medicines.
Offices: Boston, Massachusetts 02143, US
