About Clarifai

Clarifai is a leading, compute orchestration AI platform specializing in computer vision & generative AI. We empower organizations to transform unstructured image, video, text, & audio data into actionable insights, significantly faster & more accurately than manual processes. Founded in 2013 by Matt Zeiler, Ph.D., Clarifai has been at the forefront of AI innovation since achieving the top five placements in the 2013 ImageNet Challenge. Our diverse, globally distributed team operates across the United States, Canada, Estonia, Argentina, & India.

We have secured $100M in funding, including a $60M Series C round, backed by industry leaders such as Menlo Ventures, Union Square Ventures, Lux Capital, NEA, LDV Capital, Corazon Capital, Google Ventures, NVIDIA, Qualcomm, & Osage.

Clarifai is proud to be an equal-opportunity workplace committed to building & maintaining a diverse & inclusive team.

The Opportunity

As a Senior Research Scientist at Clarifai, you'll contribute to applied research initiatives, converting the latest academic insights into production-ready solutions. You'll collaborate closely with our MLOps, Engineering, Business Development, & Product teams to rapidly prototype & deliver innovative capabilities, particularly within the national security domain. Your deep expertise in Computer Vision, GenAI, & multi-modal AI will drive strategic advancements & customer success.

We seek individuals passionate about impactful AI applications, committed to collaboration, & skilled in managing multi-phase projects from initial proof-of-concept through deployment. Continuous learning & active participation in academic & industry forums are core elements of our research environment.

Key Responsibilities

• Train, evaluate, & optimize machine learning models for high performance, scalability, & robustness.
• Contribute to R&D in object detection & multi-object tracking for remote sensing, including Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR), & rapidly prototype proof-of-concept systems.
• Leverage & build AI data enginesscalable feedback systems that integrate model inference, human-guided labeling, & automated evaluationto accelerate dataset growth & model refinement.
• Design & deliver production-grade, maintainable code while managing multi-phase development aligned to technical & customer objectives.
• Collaborate across teams & stakeholdersespecially in national security & defenseto ensure effective knowledge transfer & mission-aligned innovation.

Impact

Your work as a Senior Research Scientist will significantly influence Clarifais capability to deliver innovative AI solutions to the national security & intelligence communities. You will directly contribute to strategic projects that enhance Clarifais reputation & position as a market leader in AI-driven geospatial analysis.

Requirements

• 3+ years of hands-on experience developing neural networks, focusing particularly on Computer Vision and/or GenAI.
• Expertise in Python, with strong proficiency in libraries such as PyTorch, TensorFlow, or Jax.
• Advanced degree (Masters or PhD) in Computer Science, Mathematics, Engineering, or related fields.

Great to Have

• Experience working with government, defense, or intelligence community R&D projects.
• Familiarity with remote sensing data sources, including commercial satellite imagery, UAS video, & NTM.
• Experience with LLMs, RAG, PEFT, & multi-modal applications (e.g., Captioning, VQA, cross-modal retrieval).
• Familiarity with the Model Context Protocol (MCP) & its use in structured agent communication, task orchestration, & context management across multi-agent systems.
• Published research in Computer Vision, NLP, or multi-modal AI.
• PhD in Machine Learning or related disciplines.