GenAI Research Scientist​/Engineer

About us:

At Phota Labs, we’re building visual GenAI that helps people capture, express, and relive their memories — in ways that feel effortless, personal, and emotionally resonant. Our core technology enables personalized image generation that faithfully reflects who you are and the moments you experienced. Our first goal is to bring visual GenAI into everyday photography.

We're a small team of researchers, engineers, and designers who have always been at the forefront of how people capture, edit, and share images and videos. We build with our hands and hearts. We believe GenAI is the next shift for photography, and are seeking builders who share this vision — people like us, like you. We're just getting started!

As a GenAI research Scientist/Engineer, you'll lead the post-training and adaptation of large-scale generative models. But this isn't about replicating what others have done - building yet another large and generic model with massive data. Your focus will be on making these models personal: adapting them to generate images that reflect individual identity and context through techniques like fine-tuning, conditioning, personalization, or novel methods you invent.

• Train, adapt, and fine-tune large-scale generative models with controls beyond text input.
• Rapidly prototype ideas from the latest research, or your own, across model architecture, personalization, conditioning, and training strategies.
• Conduct applied research on real-world challenges like content consistency, identity preservation, and contextual alignment.
• Design and run rigorous evaluations to inform tradeoffs, validate hypotheses, and guide model improvements.
• Collaborate closely with our ML/CV teams to product ionize your research and integrate it into user-facing pipelines.

• Have trained and fine-tuned large-scale diffusion models for image or video, especially with controls beyond plain text.
• Are experienced with post-training techniques and have worked across different types of generative model architectures.
• Know how to evaluate generative models rigorously: from quantitative metrics to subjective quality.
• Are highly proficient in PyTorch and deeply familiar with transformer architectures and modern neural networks.
• Have strong experience with large-scale training techniques — including FSDP, low-precision training, and model/data parallelism.
• Have demonstrated research depth through impactful publications or shipped GenAI systems.
• Take ownership, care about solving real problems (not just writing papers), and work well with cross-functional teams to bring ideas into production.

• This role is based in San Jose, where we work in person. We believe the best ideas come from being in the same room.
• We sponsor visas. We are committed to working through the process together for the right candidates. If you're currently outside the US, we're also committed to helping you relocate to the US throughout this process.
• We offer generous health, dental, and vision coverage, unlimited PTO, paid parental leave, and relocation support as needed.
• Don't meet every single qualification? That’s okay — we care more about your trajectory than checking every box. If the role excites you and the mission resonates, we'd love to hear from you.

Note:

In the event your application is successful and an offer of employment is made to you, any offer of employment will be conditional on the results of a background check, performed by a third party acting on our behalf.