Applied Research Scientist, Agents

About Lumafield:    Lumafield was founded in 2019 to upgrade manufacturing.   We are engineers with deep experience across the product development cycle, from initial ideas to shipping hardware, across industries and specializations, who became frustrated by the cost and complexity of modern manufacturing. So we decided to upgrade it.   Engineers make million-dollar decisions every day, and they need tools that give them the greatest possible insight into their products. By offering unprecedented visibility into products, as well as AI-driven tools that highlight problems and generate quantitative data, Lumafield promises to revolutionize the way complex products are created, manufactured, and used across industries. We started with industrial CT scanning, which for us was the most valuable but underutilized tool in the manufacturing toolbox, enabling us to rapidly inspect essential components non-destructively.   We rebuilt the whole system, from X-ray capture, to computer vision analysis, to web-based collaboration, to the entire business model, making the most advanced manufacturing tech more accessible to every industry. Our company, like our platform, is designed for upgrades. We’re building for greater intelligence, autonomy, and speed. For deeper vision, operational excellence, and powerful insights. And then we'll upgrade it all again.   Lumafield is headquartered in San Francisco, CA. and has an office in Cambridge, MA. 
About the role:    Lumafield’s AI is woven deeply throughout its products and platform.  As an Applied Research Scientist, Agents, you will extend what is possible with Lumafield’s agentic tools. This involves working across the agent stack, from top level harness and eval development down to fine-tuning and pre-training of foundational encoders for spatial reasoning. You will get the chance to work with manufacturing and design data that is not available anywhere else.  

What you'll do:

• Benchmark local LLMs, VLMs, and perception encoders.
• Fine tune and post-train models on domain-specific data and tasks.
• Develop harnesses and build real, deployed agents that our customers use.
• Develop harnesses and build real, deployed agents that our customers use.
• Develop evaluations that predict real world agent performance accurately.
• Partner with product and engineering to continually improve agents and agentic workflows.

About you:

• Are curious, detail-oriented, and a rigorous empiricist.
• People are often surprised by how fast you can build a prototype.
• Have a robust understanding of the fundamentals of LLMs, VLMs, and vision transformers. 
• Are adept at using AI for leverage, not as a substitute for depth of understanding.
• Have strong python, data, and algorithms foundations.
• Are an excellent technical communicator. 
• 5-10 years of experience in a relevant field.

Bonus:

• Experience in design, manufacturing, or hardware. 
• Advanced degree in machine learning, optimization, or a relevant discipline.
• Experience with 2D or 3D data and associated perception tasks.

Lumafield offers both competitive cash and equity compensation, as well as a health & wellness stipend, 401k, parental leave, flexible PTO, commuter benefits, company wide events and more!    Lumafield is committed to building a team that represents a variety of backgrounds, perspectives, and skills, because the more inclusive we are, the better our work will be. Do you feel like your skills don’t meet every single requirement listed? We encourage you to apply anyway – If you’re excited about our technology, the opportunity, and are eager to learn more we’d love to hear from you!     In keeping with our beliefs and goals, no employee or applicant will face discrimination or harassment based on: race, color, ancestry, national origin, religion, age, gender, marital domestic partner status, sexual orientation, gender identity, disability, genetic information or veteran status.    Reach out if you want to be a part of what we are building.