Senior Research Engineer – Safety Tooling and Data

Company

Cohere

Salary / Compensation

Not specified

Overview / Job Description

Cohere is a leading security-first enterprise AI company that develops frontier foundation models and AI products for enterprise customers. The company is seeking a Senior Research Engineer – Safety Tooling and Data to join its Modelling Safety and Trust team.

This role focuses on designing and building scalable tooling and data infrastructure that supports AI model training, evaluation, and experimentation. The successful candidate will own the vision for data tooling repositories, develop efficient data pipelines, and collaborate closely with research scientists and machine learning engineers to improve model safety, reliability, and experimentation workflows.

The position combines software engineering, machine learning infrastructure, statistics, and data science, making it ideal for engineers who enjoy solving complex technical challenges in AI research.

Responsibilities

Data Engineering & Tooling

• Design and implement scalable data pipeline tooling for data generation and annotation.
• Build and maintain data infrastructure supporting model training and evaluation.
• Develop standardized workflows for data validation, management, and continuous improvement.
• Own the architecture and long-term vision of data tooling repositories.

Machine Learning & Research Support

• Partner with ML researchers and engineers to support experimentation.
• Develop efficient pipelines for complex research problems.
• Improve data quality and coverage for AI model development.
• Support scientific experimentation through robust data analysis.

Product & Technical Leadership

• Make architectural decisions that balance maintainability and engineering efficiency.
• Establish coding standards and best practices for tooling repositories.
• Deliver well-documented, reusable technical solutions.
• Lead complex technical projects from design through deployment.

Data Analysis & Continuous Improvement

• Build frameworks to evaluate incoming datasets and identify coverage gaps.
• Analyze experimental results to inform model development decisions.
• Collaborate on improving model performance through data-driven insights.

Requirements

Experience

• Extensive experience in software engineering.
• Proven experience leading complex technical projects from conception to deployment.
• Experience building data pipelines or large-scale data infrastructure.
• Experience supporting machine learning research or production AI systems.
• Experience working with cross-functional research and engineering teams.

Skills & Competencies

• Exceptional software engineering and system design skills.
• Strong statistical analysis and scientific experimentation skills.
• Excellent problem-solving and technical decision-making abilities.
• Ability to design scalable, maintainable software architectures.
• Strong collaboration and communication skills.
• Ability to work independently with a high level of ownership.
• Sound judgment in balancing engineering quality with delivery speed.

Technical Skills

• Advanced proficiency in Python.
• Experience with PyTorch or similar machine learning frameworks.
• Experience with SQL, BigQuery, or other big data analytics platforms.
• Strong understanding of machine learning data pipelines.
• Knowledge of data engineering for AI and machine learning workflows.
• Familiarity with model training, evaluation, and experimentation processes.

Education

• No specific educational qualifications mentioned.

Candidate Profile

You SHOULD Apply If

• You are passionate about building tools that improve AI safety and reliability.
• You have strong software engineering and data engineering expertise.
• You enjoy solving complex research and infrastructure challenges.
• You thrive in collaborative environments with researchers and ML engineers.
• You are comfortable owning technical architecture and making strategic engineering decisions.
• You enjoy working on cutting-edge AI and machine learning technologies.

You Should NOT Apply If

• You prefer narrowly defined tasks with limited ownership.
• You are uncomfortable designing scalable technical systems independently.
• You have limited experience with software engineering or machine learning infrastructure.
• You are not interested in data-driven experimentation or AI research.
• You cannot work within the required UK, Europe, or Eastern Time (ET) time zone alignment.

Other Information

Employment Type

• Full-time
• Remote-friendly
• Worldwide (UK, Europe, or ET time zone alignment required)

Work Style

• Fully remote or office-based
• No minimum in-office requirement
• Flexible location within approved time zones

Additional Benefits / Highlights

• Weekly lunch stipend of $75/£75 (or local equivalent).
• Comprehensive medical and dental coverage, including a dedicated mental health budget.
• RRSP matching, 401(k), or pension scheme (location dependent).
• 100% parental leave top-up for up to six months.
• Annual wellness and enrichment allowance for fitness, arts, culture, workspace improvements, and quality time.
• Education and professional development stipend for conferences, courses, and coaching.
• Six weeks (30 working days) of paid vacation annually.
• Travel budget for visits to company offices and annual company offsite.
• Daily lunch, snacks, and social events for office-based employees.
• Co-working allowance for remote employees not located near a Cohere office.
• $500 home office stipend.
• Inclusive, remote-first culture with equal opportunity employment practices.
• Applications are encouraged even if candidates do not meet every listed qualification.