Senior Research Engineer

We are Output - the secret sauce behind much of the music you know. A global leader in music creation software, powering the world's biggest hitmakers. We are best known for our groundbreaking creative plugins and instruments like Arcade, Co-Producer, Exhale, Rev, and Portal—used to create hits by artists like Beyoncé, Kendrick Lamar, Billie Eilish, Skrillex, and Björk, as well as scores for films and shows like Stranger Things, Game of Thrones, and countless others. We build tools that push the boundaries of musical creativity without replacing the human at the center, because as musicians ourselves, we believe the world needs more human creativity and less noise.

Our R&D team is growing, and we’re looking for a Senior Research Engineer to join us in creating innovative new AI-based music creation products. In this role you will help us rapidly prototype new ideas applying the latest technologies – developing, training, refining, and deploying ML-based models so they can be used for exciting new features that support rich new music experiences for our users. This role will work on prototyping features in areas including search, audio analysis, generative audio, and more. The ideal candidate will be comfortable working in a fast-paced start-up environment working closely with some of the most creative minds in music tech.  We’re looking for someone who is intrinsically motivated, able to keep up with all the latest AI tech, detail-oriented, and energized to contribute to the future of our R&D roadmap.

How you'll add value:

• Model Development & Prototyping
  • Develop, build, and test ML models with a small R&D team to inspire and empower musical creativity 
  • Determine the best approach and application of ML technology for a given problem space  
  • Apply modern ML frameworks and tools efficiently to these problems 
• Collaboration and communication
  • Participate in discussions with stakeholders and executives to understand, develop, and refine requirements and solution space
  • Work with software engineers, content specialists, quality assurance, and other team members to ensure that ML models are developed with production environments in mind and are easy to deploy and maintain
• Optimization and iteration
  • Data analysis and measuring model performance in development and in production
  • Continuously optimize ML models to improve performance, accuracy, and cost
  • Tuning of hyperparameters, curating datasets for fine-tuning, optimizing algorithms
  • Investigating alternative approaches where necessary
• Stay up-to-date with current tools, techniques, and state-of-the-art and regularly shares these with team members 
• Represent Output’s R&D efforts to the wider research and technical communities online and in-person

What you'll need to be successful in this role:

• 5+ years experience in applied research in AI/ML, or equivalent academic experience
• MS or PhD in CS, ML, or equivalent
• Interest and passion in music tech
• High agency and strong problem-solving skills
• Propensity to thrive and adapt in a startup environment
• Experience developing prototypes and tests to communicate and evaluate new product features based on AI/ML innovations
• Experience with specific ML tools, languages and frameworks
  • Python, Numpy, Pytorch, Tensorflow, Pandas, etc
  • Training, evaluating, and fine-tuning open source models 
  • Familiarity with modern ML models and techniques such as transformers, LLMs, diffusion, and contrastive learning
  • Understanding of audio signal processing fundamentals such as spectrograms, transforms, filtering, compression, windowing, etc. 
  • Knowledge of music theory concepts such as pitch, keys, scales, chords, tempo/rhythm/BPM, etc.
  • Experiment Tracking Frameworks (Neptune, W&B, dora, etc)
  • Deployment of models for inference to the cloud (GCP, Replicate, Lambda Labs, etc.) and/or to desktop/mobile platforms (ONNX, C++)
  • GCP Vertex or similar
• Experience with digital audio workstation software and AI-based music production workflows in music production a strong plus

Additional information:

• This role is open to candidates in the following states (California, Washington, New York, Colorado and Florida) with a strong preference for someone in Los Angeles.
• In accordance with California law, the base salary range for this role if filled within Los Angeles is $155,000 - $195,000. The range for the position in other geographies may vary based on market differences. The actual compensation will be determined based on experience and other factors permitted by law
• Applicants must be currently authorized to work in the United States on a full-time basis
• Output is an Equal Opportunity Employer. Output’s employment decisions are made without regard with race, color, religion, national origin, age, sex, marital status, ancestry, physical or mental disability, veteran status, gender identity, sexual orientation, or any other legally protected status.