Open Positions
Browse our current openings and find your next opportunity.
Member of Technical Staff (Intern)
Sakana AI is offering a research internship for exceptional students and early-career researchers who are excited about nature-inspired approaches to artificial intelligence. As a Member of Technical Staff (Intern), you will work directly with our research team — including scientists who co-invented the Transformer architecture — on cutting-edge projects in evolutionary computation, neural architecture search, model merging, and other biologically-inspired AI techniques. During your internship, you will own a meaningful research project from conception through execution. This means designing experiments, implementing novel algorithms, running large-scale training on our GPU clusters, analyzing results rigorously, and writing up your findings. Past interns at similar labs have gone on to publish at top venues like NeurIPS, ICML, and ICLR, and we aim to provide the same opportunity. You will have access to significant compute resources, mentorship from leading researchers, and the freedom to explore unconventional ideas. What makes interning at Sakana AI different from other AI labs is our research philosophy. We draw inspiration from natural systems — evolution, swarm intelligence, ecosystems — to develop AI techniques that are more robust, efficient, and creative than purely gradient-based approaches. If you are the kind of researcher who is curious about why ant colonies can solve routing problems or how evolution discovers solutions that no human designer would conceive, you will thrive here. We are looking for highly motivated candidates with strong fundamentals in machine learning, a genuine passion for research, and the intellectual courage to explore ideas that the mainstream considers unusual. You should be comfortable working independently, have strong coding skills, and be excited about the possibility that the best AI techniques are still waiting to be discovered in nature. **Requirements:** - Currently pursuing or recently completed MS/PhD in Computer Science, Machine Learning, or a related quantitative field - Strong fundamentals in machine learning and deep learning with coursework or research experience - Proficiency in Python and PyTorch with the ability to implement research papers from scratch - Experience designing and running research experiments with proper methodology and analysis - At least one published paper or significant research project in ML/AI (workshop papers count) - Strong mathematical foundations: linear algebra, optimization, probability, and information theory - Interest in evolutionary computation, neuroevolution, model merging, or nature-inspired algorithms is highly valued
Communications Manager
Sakana AI is hiring a Communications Manager to lead our external and internal communications strategy at one of the most closely watched AI companies in the world. Founded by Llion Jones, co-inventor of the Transformer architecture that powers modern AI, Sakana AI generates significant media interest — and we need someone who can channel that attention into a coherent, compelling narrative that builds our brand and supports our business goals. In this role, you will manage media relations with technology journalists worldwide, write and distribute press releases for product launches and research milestones, coordinate social media strategy across platforms, support the communications around major research paper releases, and develop thought leadership content that positions Sakana AI leadership as voices that matter in the AI conversation. You will also manage crisis communications and prepare leadership for media interviews, panel discussions, and keynote presentations. Day to day, you will monitor media coverage and industry narratives, draft blog posts and announcements, brief journalists on embargoed research, manage our editorial calendar, coordinate with our research team to translate technical breakthroughs into stories that resonate with broad audiences, and track the impact of our communications efforts through media coverage, social engagement, and brand awareness metrics. We are looking for a communications professional who understands the AI industry deeply — its key players, narratives, controversies, and opportunities — and can translate complex technical achievements into compelling stories that build trust, attract talent, and generate business interest. You should be an excellent writer, a strategic thinker about narrative, and skilled at building and maintaining relationships with technology journalists. **Requirements:** - 3+ years of communications, PR, or corporate communications experience in the technology industry - Excellent writing and editing skills in English with a portfolio of published work - Established relationships with technology journalists and experience managing media outreach campaigns - Understanding of the AI/ML industry, its key narratives, and the ability to position technical work for broad audiences - Experience managing social media presence and content strategy for a technology brand - Strong project management skills for coordinating launches, events, and editorial calendars - Experience in startup communications, AI research communications, or technology PR agency background is a plus
Recruiter
Join Sakana AI as a Recruiter to help us build one of the most talented AI teams in the world. Founded by Llion Jones (co-inventor of the Transformer) and David Ha (former head of research at Stability AI), Sakana AI attracts extraordinary talent — and we need a recruiter who can identify, engage, and close candidates at this caliber. You will own the full recruitment lifecycle across engineering, research, and business functions as we scale rapidly. In this role, you will partner with hiring managers to define roles and ideal candidate profiles, build diverse candidate pipelines through creative sourcing strategies, conduct initial screens that assess both technical capability and culture fit, manage the end-to-end interview process, and negotiate competitive offers. You will also contribute to employer branding — telling the Sakana AI story at conferences, on social media, and through the candidate experience itself. Recruiting for Sakana AI presents unique challenges and opportunities. Our ideal candidates are often world-class researchers or engineers who are not actively looking for new roles. They need to be convinced that Sakana AI offers something they cannot find elsewhere: the chance to work with Transformer co-inventors, a genuinely novel research agenda, significant funding, and the excitement of building from Tokyo. You will craft personalized outreach that speaks to what motivates top-tier technical talent. We are looking for a recruiter who is passionate about finding exceptional people and creating an outstanding candidate experience from first touch to day one. You should be comfortable sourcing for highly technical roles, conversant enough in AI/ML to have credibility with candidates, and energized by the challenge of competing for talent against the biggest names in tech. **Requirements:** - 3+ years of full-cycle recruiting experience, preferably hiring for engineering and research roles in tech - Demonstrated success sourcing and closing passive candidates for highly technical positions - Strong understanding of the AI/ML talent landscape, compensation benchmarks, and competitive dynamics - Excellent communication and relationship-building skills across cultures and seniority levels - Experience with ATS systems and modern recruiting tools (LinkedIn Recruiter, sourcing platforms) - Data-driven approach to recruiting: you track pipeline metrics and continuously optimize conversion rates - Fluency in English and Japanese preferred for engaging with our international candidate pool
Office Assistant
Sakana AI is looking for an Office Assistant to support the smooth operation of our Tokyo headquarters. As a rapidly growing AI research company with ~150 employees, international visitors, and a fast-paced work environment, our office needs someone who can keep everything running seamlessly behind the scenes. You will be the heart of our workspace, ensuring that our researchers and engineers have everything they need to do their best work. In this role, you will manage daily office logistics including supply procurement, mail handling, and facility maintenance coordination. You will coordinate meeting room schedules, set up video conferencing for our international calls, manage visitor registration and guest access, and assist with organizing team events — from weekly all-hands catering to quarterly offsite logistics. You will also handle vendor relationships, process invoices, and support our HR team with onboarding logistics for new hires. What makes this role rewarding is the environment you will be part of. Sakana AI is working on some of the most exciting AI research in the world, founded by pioneers of the field. You will interact daily with brilliant researchers and engineers from around the globe, and your work directly enables their productivity. The office culture is collaborative, international, and fast-moving. We are looking for someone who is proactive, organized, and takes genuine pride in creating an excellent working environment. You should be a natural problem-solver who anticipates needs before they arise, can juggle multiple priorities gracefully, and brings positive energy to the workplace every day. **Requirements:** - 1+ years of office administration, executive assistant, or facilities management experience - Strong organizational and time management skills with attention to detail - Proficiency with office productivity tools (Google Workspace, Slack, basic spreadsheets) - Excellent interpersonal skills and a warm, professional demeanor with visitors and team members - Fluent in Japanese with working English proficiency for communication with international team members - Proactive mindset that anticipates needs before they arise - Experience in a tech startup or international company environment is a plus
Public Sector Specialist
We are seeking a Public Sector Specialist to develop and manage Sakana AI's relationships with government agencies and public institutions across Japan and internationally. As governments worldwide accelerate their adoption of AI for public services, national security, and administrative efficiency, Sakana AI is uniquely positioned: founded in Tokyo, backed by $412M, and building AI technology that is both powerful and controllable. In this role, you will identify opportunities in government AI procurement, build relationships with key decision-makers in ministries and agencies, manage responses to RFPs and government tenders, and represent Sakana AI at government technology conferences and industry events. You will also work with our policy team on AI governance initiatives, helping shape the regulatory environment in ways that benefit both the public interest and responsible AI companies like Sakana. Day to day, you will track government AI procurement pipelines, prepare bid documents and capability statements, organize meetings and demonstrations for government stakeholders, coordinate with our engineering team on compliance requirements, and build the institutional relationships that turn one-time contracts into long-term strategic partnerships. The ideal candidate has deep experience in public sector technology sales or government relations and understands the unique dynamics of how government organizations evaluate, procure, and adopt new technology. You should be well-networked in Japanese government technology circles, comfortable navigating bureaucratic processes, and genuinely passionate about AI's potential to improve public services. **Requirements:** - 5+ years of public sector business development, government relations, or government technology experience - Established network within Japanese government technology organizations (METI, MOD, Digital Agency, etc.) - Experience with government procurement processes, RFP responses, and public tender submissions - Understanding of AI/ML technology at a level sufficient to discuss capabilities with technical government stakeholders - Strong relationship management and communication skills across government hierarchies - Fluent in Japanese and English with experience in cross-cultural business environments - Experience with defense or intelligence procurement processes is a significant plus
Corporate Development
Sakana AI is looking for a Corporate Development professional to drive strategic partnerships, investments, and M&A opportunities that accelerate our growth and strengthen our position in the global AI landscape. With $412M raised and a unique technology platform, Sakana AI is in a strong position to pursue strategic transactions — and you will be the person who identifies, evaluates, and executes them. In this role, you will scan the AI ecosystem for acquisition targets, investment opportunities, and strategic partnerships that complement our nature-inspired research and expand our market reach. You will build financial models, conduct due diligence, structure deal terms, negotiate with counterparties, and manage transactions through closing. You will also support fundraising activities and investor relations, working directly with the CEO and leadership team on the company's most consequential strategic decisions. What makes corporate development at Sakana AI particularly exciting is the pace and dynamism of the AI market. New research labs, startups, and technologies emerge weekly, and the strategic landscape is constantly shifting. You will need to maintain a real-time map of the competitive landscape, identify opportunities before they become obvious, and move quickly when the right deal presents itself. We are looking for someone who combines rigorous financial acumen with strategic intuition and strong relationship skills. You should be comfortable analyzing complex deals across multiple jurisdictions (Japan, US, Europe), building financial models under deep uncertainty, and presenting clear recommendations to senior leadership under time pressure. **Requirements:** - 5+ years of experience in corporate development, investment banking, venture capital, or strategic finance - Strong financial modeling, valuation, and transaction structuring skills - Experience executing M&A transactions, strategic investments, or complex partnership agreements - Deep understanding of the AI/ML landscape, technology market dynamics, and competitive positioning - Excellent negotiation skills and experience managing deal processes with multiple stakeholders - Strong presentation and written communication abilities for board-level materials - MBA or equivalent advanced degree preferred; fluency in English and Japanese highly valued
Project Manager (Manufacturing)
We are hiring a Project Manager to lead AI implementation projects for our manufacturing sector customers. Japan is home to some of the world's most sophisticated manufacturing operations, and Sakana AI's nature-inspired models offer unique capabilities for quality control, predictive maintenance, process optimization, and supply chain intelligence. You will manage the end-to-end delivery of these AI solutions from pilot through production deployment. In this role, you will coordinate between Sakana AI engineering teams and manufacturing partners to deploy AI systems in live production environments — environments where downtime is measured in millions of yen per hour and safety is paramount. You will manage pilot programs with clear success metrics, organize factory site visits and integration testing sessions, oversee production rollouts with careful change management, and ensure our AI solutions deliver measurable ROI. Day to day, you will maintain project plans and risk registers, run weekly syncs with customer operational teams, coordinate on-site engineering visits, manage UAT (user acceptance testing) processes, and track KPIs that demonstrate the business value of our AI deployments. You will also build institutional knowledge about manufacturing AI deployments that helps us scale our playbook across customers. We are looking for someone who understands the manufacturing domain — its terminology, constraints, safety requirements, and operational rhythms — and can bridge the gap between cutting-edge AI technology and practical industrial applications. You should be comfortable on factory floors, skilled at managing expectations with operations-focused stakeholders, and excited about seeing AI make a tangible impact in the physical world. **Requirements:** - 3+ years of project management experience in manufacturing, industrial technology, or operational technology - Understanding of manufacturing processes, quality systems (ISO 9001), and operational technology environments - Experience managing technology implementation projects in factory or industrial settings - Strong stakeholder management skills across both technical AI teams and operational manufacturing teams - Excellent organizational skills with rigorous documentation and change management practices - Willingness to travel regularly to customer manufacturing sites in Japan - Experience with Industry 4.0, IoT, or industrial AI projects is a significant plus
Project Manager (Defense and Intelligence)
Sakana AI is seeking a Project Manager to lead delivery for our defense and intelligence programs. Government engagements operate under fundamentally different constraints than commercial projects — strict security classifications, complex procurement cycles, multi-agency stakeholder environments, and compliance requirements that touch every aspect of delivery. You will be the operational leader who navigates this complexity. In this role, you will manage the full lifecycle of defense AI programs: from initial contract requirements analysis through secure development, testing, and deployment. You will coordinate security reviews and clearance processes, manage classified project documentation with appropriate handling procedures, ensure deliverables meet government acceptance criteria, and maintain the detailed audit trails that government contracts require. Day to day, you will run program status reviews with government stakeholders, track milestones against contract deliverables, coordinate between Sakana AI engineering teams and government program offices, and manage the security protocols that govern how our teams access and handle sensitive information. You will also build and maintain the project management frameworks and templates specific to our defense engagements. The ideal candidate has direct experience working with government clients in Japan or allied nations and understands the procurement, compliance, and delivery cadences unique to the defense sector. You should be detail-oriented to an extreme degree, comfortable with extensive documentation requirements, and skilled at managing relationships across military, intelligence, and civilian government stakeholders. **Requirements:** - 3+ years of project management experience with government or defense clients - Understanding of government procurement processes, contract types, and compliance requirements - Experience managing projects with security classification requirements and controlled information - Strong documentation, process management, and audit trail maintenance skills - Excellent stakeholder management across government program offices and technical teams - Ability to obtain or currently hold relevant security clearances (Japanese government or allied) - Experience with defense technology programs or classified AI/ML projects is a strong plus
Project Manager
Join Sakana AI as a Project Manager to lead the execution of customer delivery projects and key internal initiatives. As our customer base grows across Japan and internationally, we need someone who can manage the full lifecycle of engagements — from kickoff through delivery — ensuring every project lands on time and exceeds expectations. In this role, you will coordinate with engineering, sales, and customer success teams to manage customer implementations, track deliverables, run status meetings, and escalate risks proactively. You will also support internal projects that improve our operational processes, from onboarding workflows to delivery playbooks. Your organizational skills will be the glue that holds complex, multi-stakeholder projects together. What makes project management at Sakana AI uniquely interesting is the variety of projects you will manage. One might be a cloud API integration for a fintech company, another a custom model deployment for a government agency, and a third an internal initiative to streamline our research-to-production pipeline. Each requires a different approach, different stakeholders, and different success criteria. We are looking for an organized, proactive project manager who thrives in a fast-paced startup environment where processes are still being built. You should be comfortable managing multiple parallel projects, adapting quickly to changing priorities, and bringing structure to ambiguity without creating unnecessary bureaucracy. **Requirements:** - 3+ years of project management experience in technology companies - Experience managing software delivery, implementation, or professional services projects - Strong organizational and time management skills with meticulous attention to detail - Proficiency with project management tools (Jira, Linear, Asana, or equivalent) - Excellent communication skills in English and Japanese for cross-cultural stakeholder management - PMP, Scrum Master, or Agile certification is a plus - Experience in AI/ML, enterprise software, or SaaS delivery is a plus
Product Manager
Sakana AI is hiring a Product Manager to define and drive our product strategy as we bring nature-inspired AI models to developers and enterprises worldwide. You will own the roadmap for our developer-facing products — APIs, SDKs, model playground, and deployment tools — making critical decisions about what we build, for whom, and in what order. You will work at the intersection of breakthrough research capabilities and real market needs. Sakana AI's technology is genuinely differentiated: evolutionary model merging, architecture search inspired by biological systems, and techniques that let customers combine and customize foundation models in ways no other company offers. Your job is to translate these capabilities into products that developers love and enterprises pay for, finding the use cases where our unique approach creates the most value. Day to day, you will conduct customer discovery interviews, analyze usage data and market signals, write detailed product requirements documents, prioritize ruthlessly across a backlog of exciting possibilities, and work closely with engineering to ship iteratively. You will also represent the customer perspective in research planning discussions, helping the team understand which research directions have the highest commercial potential. We are looking for a product thinker who understands AI deeply enough to have conviction about where the technology is going, but is grounded enough to ship incrementally based on what customers need today. You should be data-driven, customer-obsessed, and comfortable making high-stakes decisions with incomplete information in a fast-moving environment. **Requirements:** - 5+ years of product management experience, with at least 2 years working on AI/ML or developer-focused products - Strong technical understanding of AI/ML concepts, model architectures, and developer tooling ecosystems - Experience with B2B or developer platform products with a track record of achieving product-market fit - Demonstrated ability to translate complex technical capabilities into clear product positioning and user stories - Strong analytical skills: comfortable with SQL, product analytics tools, and data-driven decision making - Excellent written and verbal communication skills for PRDs, roadmap presentations, and customer-facing materials - Experience in early-stage AI startups or research-driven product organizations is a significant plus
Technical Program Manager
We are looking for a Technical Program Manager to drive the execution of complex, cross-functional programs at Sakana AI. As we scale from a research lab to an enterprise AI company, the number of interdependent workstreams — research milestones, product launches, customer deployments, infrastructure buildouts — is growing rapidly. You will be the person who ensures these moving pieces come together on time, at quality, and without surprises. In this role, you will manage program roadmaps that span research, engineering, product, and business teams. You will run weekly syncs, identify and mitigate risks before they become blockers, facilitate difficult trade-off decisions, and communicate progress to Sakana AI leadership with clarity and honesty. You will also define and improve the processes that help our teams coordinate effectively as the company grows. What makes this role distinctive at Sakana AI is the nature of the programs you will manage. Research timelines are inherently uncertain — an evolutionary training run might converge in days or take weeks. Customer deployments span from cloud APIs to air-gapped government installations. You will need to build program management frameworks that embrace this uncertainty while still delivering predictable outcomes. The ideal candidate has a technical background and can speak fluently with engineers about distributed systems and model architectures while also managing stakeholder expectations with executive leadership. You are highly organized, proactive about surfacing problems early, and skilled at driving alignment when smart people disagree. **Requirements:** - 5+ years of technical program management experience at technology companies - Technical background: CS degree or equivalent engineering experience - Experience managing ML/AI programs, infrastructure projects, or complex software platform initiatives - Proven track record of delivering complex, multi-team programs on schedule - Excellent written and verbal communication skills, especially for executive-level status updates - Experience with agile methodologies and program tracking tools (Jira, Linear, or equivalent) - Ability to work effectively in a bilingual (English/Japanese) environment is a strong plus
Cybersecurity Engineer
Sakana AI is hiring a Cybersecurity Engineer to protect our AI systems, customer data, and corporate infrastructure as we scale our enterprise and government deployments. Security is not an afterthought at Sakana AI — it is foundational to our ability to serve customers who trust us with their most sensitive data and mission-critical AI applications. You will design and implement security controls across our cloud infrastructure, conduct threat modeling for AI-specific attack vectors that traditional security teams rarely encounter, manage our vulnerability disclosure and remediation program, and ensure compliance with international security standards required by our enterprise and government customers. A significant part of your work will involve evaluating AI-specific security concerns: model poisoning and backdoor attacks, prompt injection and jailbreaking, training data extraction, and adversarial inputs designed to manipulate model outputs. Day to day, you will perform security reviews of new infrastructure and application code, manage penetration testing programs, respond to security incidents, configure and monitor our SIEM and WAF systems, and work with engineering teams to bake security into the development lifecycle rather than bolting it on after the fact. You will also lead our security compliance efforts for SOC 2, ISO 27001, and government-specific frameworks. The ideal candidate understands both traditional cybersecurity and the unique challenges of securing AI/ML systems. You should be proactive and detail-oriented, excited about the novel security challenges that come with deploying cutting-edge AI, and skilled at building security processes that protect without slowing down a fast-moving engineering team. **Requirements:** - 3+ years of cybersecurity engineering experience in a technology company - Hands-on experience with cloud security (AWS/GCP), network security, and application security testing - Understanding of compliance frameworks (SOC 2, ISO 27001, NIST) and experience leading audit preparations - Experience with security tooling: SIEM platforms, WAF configuration, vulnerability scanners, and endpoint protection - Familiarity with AI/ML-specific security concerns including adversarial attacks, data privacy, and model security - Strong scripting skills (Python, Bash) for security automation, log analysis, and incident response tooling - Security certifications (CISSP, CEH, OSCP, or equivalent) are a plus
Solution Engineer
Join Sakana AI as a Solution Engineer to design and implement end-to-end AI solutions for our enterprise customers. You will serve as the technical bridge between our AI platform and customer business requirements, working in the pre-sales and early deployment phases to prove that our nature-inspired models can solve real problems better than alternatives. In this role, you will lead technical discovery sessions with prospective customers, architect solution designs that combine Sakana AI's model capabilities with existing customer infrastructure, build compelling proof-of-concept implementations, and support the transition to production deployments. You will work across our full product portfolio — evolutionary model merging, custom architecture search, and fine-tuned foundation models — to find the optimal combination for each customer's needs. Day to day, you will respond to technical RFP questions, build demo environments and proof-of-concept systems, create technical documentation and architecture diagrams, and present solutions to technical decision-makers. You will also feed customer requirements back to the product and engineering teams, helping shape our product roadmap based on real market needs. We are looking for engineers who combine strong technical depth with genuine business acumen. You should be able to translate a customer's vague description of a business problem into a concrete technical specification, then build a working demo that makes the value proposition undeniable. Strong presentation skills and the ability to communicate complex AI concepts to non-technical stakeholders are essential. **Requirements:** - 3+ years of solutions engineering, technical consulting, or pre-sales engineering experience - Strong proficiency in Python and hands-on experience with cloud platforms (AWS, GCP, or Azure) - Solid understanding of ML/AI concepts, model deployment patterns, and common AI/ML architectures - Experience with enterprise software architecture, API integration, and data pipeline design - Excellent presentation skills and ability to create compelling technical demos and documentation - Experience managing the technical side of enterprise sales cycles and RFP responses - Background in NLP, computer vision, or generative AI applications is a significant plus
Forward Deployed Engineer
Sakana AI is looking for a Forward Deployed Engineer to work directly with our most strategic customers, embedding with their teams to understand their unique challenges and build custom AI solutions that deliver measurable business value. You will be the technical face of Sakana AI in the field — part engineer, part consultant, part trusted advisor — working with some of the most sophisticated technology organizations in Japan and globally. No two weeks will look the same. One engagement might have you designing a custom model merging pipeline for a financial services firm that needs to combine domain-specific models with general-purpose capabilities. The next might involve optimizing inference latency for a manufacturing company deploying our models on edge devices in factory environments. You will context-switch between different industries, technical stacks, and problem domains, always finding the fastest path from customer pain point to working solution. What makes this role special at Sakana AI is the technology you bring to these engagements. Our nature-inspired approach to model development gives you a unique toolkit: you can evolve custom model architectures for specific use cases, merge existing models to combine capabilities, and leverage our evolutionary optimization techniques to solve problems that conventional fine-tuning approaches struggle with. We are looking for versatile engineers who are excellent communicators, comfortable with ambiguity, and energized by variety. You should be the kind of person who can walk into a room of skeptical enterprise architects, understand their constraints in 30 minutes, and have a working prototype by end of day. **Requirements:** - 3+ years of software engineering experience, ideally in a customer-facing or consulting role - Strong proficiency in Python and at least one systems language (Go, Rust, C++) - Hands-on experience with ML model deployment, inference optimization, and production ML systems - Excellent communication and presentation skills - Ability to rapidly understand new domains, technical requirements, and business constraints - Comfort with travel within Japan and occasionally internationally to customer sites - Experience in technical consulting, solutions engineering, or forward-deployed engineering a strong plus
Applied Research Engineer
We are seeking an Applied Research Engineer to bridge the gap between cutting-edge research and production systems at Sakana AI. This is a role for someone who reads papers on Monday, implements them on Tuesday, runs experiments at scale on Wednesday, and ships the results to production by Friday. You will be the critical translation layer between our world-class research team and the engineering organization that deploys their ideas to real customers. Sakana AI's research agenda is genuinely novel: evolutionary model merging, neural architecture search inspired by biological systems, swarm-based optimization, and techniques for efficiently combining the strengths of multiple foundation models. As an Applied Research Engineer, you will take these ideas from proof-of-concept to robust, reproducible systems. You will build evaluation frameworks that rigorously measure model quality, run ablation studies at scale, fine-tune models for specific enterprise use cases, and develop the tooling that makes our research reproducible. Day to day, you will split your time between reading and implementing recent papers (both internal and external), running large-scale experiments on our GPU clusters, building evaluation pipelines, and collaborating with product engineers to integrate research outputs into customer-facing systems. You will maintain experiment tracking infrastructure and ensure that every result we publish or ship is reproducible. The ideal candidate combines deep ML knowledge with strong engineering practices. You should be equally comfortable deriving gradient updates on a whiteboard and writing production-quality Python with comprehensive tests. Experience with evolutionary computation, neural architecture search, or model merging techniques is highly valued and will give you a significant head start. **Requirements:** - 5+ years of experience in applied ML, ML engineering, or research engineering roles - Strong proficiency in PyTorch with deep familiarity with modern LLM and foundation model architectures - Demonstrated experience fine-tuning, evaluating, and deploying foundation models in production settings - Ability to read, implement, and extend research papers independently - Strong software engineering practices: comprehensive testing, code review discipline, clear documentation - Experience with experiment tracking and reproducibility tools (Weights & Biases, MLflow, or equivalent) - Publications or significant contributions to open-source ML projects are a strong plus
Principal Platform Engineer
Sakana AI is looking for a Principal Platform Engineer to lead the technical vision and architecture of our entire infrastructure platform. This is a senior individual contributor role — not management — where you will set the technical direction for how we build, deploy, and operate AI systems at the scale our ambitions demand. With $412M in funding and a research agenda that requires massive compute, the infrastructure decisions you make will have outsized impact on what Sakana AI can achieve. You will be the person other engineers turn to when facing the hardest infrastructure problems: how to schedule heterogeneous GPU workloads across multiple clusters and cloud providers, how to build a model serving layer that handles both latency-sensitive inference and batch evolutionary search, how to design a data platform that supports the unique access patterns of nature-inspired training. You will produce architecture documents, lead design reviews, and make the calls on build-vs-buy decisions that shape our infrastructure for years. Beyond technical architecture, you will mentor engineers across the organization, establish engineering standards and best practices, and help build a platform engineering culture that balances long-term technical vision with pragmatic execution. You will work directly with Sakana AI leadership to align infrastructure investments with research and business goals, translating compute requirements into capacity plans and budget forecasts. The ideal candidate is a seasoned infrastructure leader who has built platforms serving millions of requests, managed large-scale GPU clusters, and can articulate a technical vision that inspires a team. You are recognized as a technical authority in infrastructure and can influence decisions across organizational boundaries without formal authority. **Requirements:** - 10+ years of infrastructure/platform engineering experience, including at least 3 years in a staff+ or principal role - Proven track record of designing and building infrastructure systems at significant scale - Experience leading technical architecture decisions across multiple teams and driving org-wide standards - Deep expertise in distributed systems, networking, storage systems, and cloud-native architectures - Hands-on experience with ML infrastructure: GPU cluster management, distributed training orchestration, model serving at scale - Strong technical leadership skills with ability to mentor senior engineers and influence without authority - Experience with capacity planning, cost optimization, and aligning infrastructure investments with business strategy
Software Engineer (Platform)
Join Sakana AI as a Platform Engineer to build and maintain the foundational infrastructure that powers all of our AI research and production services. You will design and operate systems for GPU compute orchestration, model serving at scale, data pipelines for training runs, and the internal developer platforms that let our engineering and research teams move fast without sacrificing reliability. Your work will be the invisible backbone that makes everything else at Sakana AI possible. When a researcher needs to launch 10,000 parallel evolutionary experiments across a GPU cluster, your systems handle the scheduling, monitoring, and resource allocation. When an enterprise customer needs sub-100ms inference latency, your serving infrastructure delivers it. You will build abstractions that hide infrastructure complexity while giving teams the control they need. Day to day, you will work on Kubernetes cluster operations, GPU scheduling and multi-tenancy, infrastructure-as-code with Terraform, observability stack management (Prometheus, Grafana, distributed tracing), and CI/CD pipelines that handle everything from model training to production deployment. You will also build internal CLIs and dashboards that make infrastructure self-service for other teams. We are looking for someone with deep infrastructure expertise who genuinely enjoys building developer tools and platforms. You should have strong opinions about system design, observability, and reliability engineering, and be excited about the unique challenges of AI infrastructure — where a single training run can cost hundreds of thousands of dollars and a misconfigured scheduler can waste an entire GPU cluster. **Requirements:** - 5+ years of platform or infrastructure engineering experience at a technology company - Strong proficiency in Go, Python, or Rust for building infrastructure tooling and services - Deep hands-on experience with Kubernetes, Terraform, and cloud-native architectures on AWS or GCP - Experience building internal developer platforms, CLIs, or self-service infrastructure tooling - Understanding of GPU cluster management, ML serving infrastructure (Triton, vLLM), and compute scheduling - Strong background in observability (Prometheus, Grafana, OpenTelemetry, structured logging) - Experience with high-availability systems design, incident response, and SRE practices
Software Engineer (Product)
We are looking for a Product Software Engineer to build the user-facing products and interfaces that showcase Sakana AI's nature-inspired foundation models to the world. You will own the full stack of our product experiences — from beautiful, responsive frontends to reliable backend services — creating the surfaces through which researchers, developers, and enterprise users interact with our technology. Day to day, you will collaborate with designers and product managers to ship polished user experiences that make complex AI accessible and intuitive. This includes our model playground for experimentation, deployment dashboards for monitoring production systems, developer documentation portals, and the public-facing website that tells the Sakana AI story. You will build real-time features like streaming model outputs, interactive visualizations of evolutionary training processes, and collaborative tools for teams working with our models. What makes this role distinctive at Sakana AI is the nature of what you are building interfaces for. Our models are trained using evolutionary algorithms, model merging, and other nature-inspired techniques that produce genuinely novel behaviors. Designing product experiences that let users understand and harness these capabilities requires creative thinking about UX that goes beyond standard chat interfaces. We value engineers who care deeply about craft, performance, and user experience. You should be opinionated about frontend architecture, excited about building products that feel fast and delightful, and comfortable making technical decisions independently in a small, high-impact team. **Requirements:** - 5+ years of full-stack engineering experience building consumer or developer-facing products - Expert-level proficiency in React/Next.js and TypeScript with a strong portfolio of shipped products - Strong backend skills in Node.js, Python, or Go with experience designing APIs and data models - Eye for design and deep attention to UI/UX details - Experience with real-time features including streaming responses, WebSockets, and server-sent events - Performance optimization expertise (Core Web Vitals, bundle optimization, rendering strategies) - Familiarity with AI/ML product patterns (chat interfaces, model playgrounds, evaluation dashboards) a plus
Software Engineer (Defense and Intelligence)
Sakana AI is seeking a Software Engineer to join our Defense and Intelligence team, building mission-critical AI systems for government and defense partners in Japan and allied nations. As AI becomes central to national security, Sakana AI is positioned uniquely: our nature-inspired approaches to model training produce systems that are more robust, adaptable, and interpretable than conventional approaches, making them particularly well-suited for high-stakes deployments. In this role, you will develop secure deployment pipelines for air-gapped and classified environments, implement inference solutions that operate on edge hardware with constrained resources, and build comprehensive monitoring systems for safety-critical AI applications. You will work with sensitive data and mission-critical systems where reliability is not optional and failure modes must be thoroughly understood. What sets this role apart is the combination of cutting-edge AI technology with the rigor of defense-grade engineering. You will apply Sakana AI's latest research to some of the most demanding deployment scenarios in the world, working with teams that require absolute confidence in system behavior. You will also collaborate with our cybersecurity team to ensure all systems meet the highest classification and compliance standards. The ideal candidate combines strong software engineering skills with an understanding of government compliance requirements and secure development practices. You should be comfortable working in highly regulated environments, meticulous about security protocols, and passionate about responsible AI deployment in service of public safety. **Requirements:** - 3+ years of software engineering experience, preferably in defense, intelligence, or government technology - Strong proficiency in Python, Go, or Rust with a focus on secure, reliable systems - Experience with secure software development practices and compliance frameworks (NIST, Common Criteria) - Deep understanding of containerization and orchestration (Kubernetes, Docker) in restricted environments - Familiarity with air-gapped deployment, edge computing, and constrained-resource inference - Ability to obtain security clearance (Japanese government or allied nation equivalent) - Experience with MLOps, model deployment in constrained environments, and hardware-software co-optimization
Software Engineer (Enterprise)
Join Sakana AI as a Software Engineer on our Enterprise team, where you will build and maintain the APIs, SDKs, and integration tools that our enterprise customers rely on to deploy nature-inspired AI models into their production systems. Sakana AI has raised $412M and is rapidly expanding its enterprise customer base across Japan, Asia, and globally. Your work will directly determine how the world's largest organizations adopt and benefit from our unique approach to AI. You will work closely with our solutions engineering and customer success teams to understand the real-world requirements of enterprise deployments: authentication flows, rate limiting, audit logging, multi-tenancy, and compliance with regional data regulations. You will design systems that are not just functional but genuinely delightful for developers to integrate with, combining robust security with clean API ergonomics. Day to day, you will ship API features, build client SDKs in multiple languages, design webhook systems for real-time model output delivery, and instrument everything for observability. You will also build internal tooling that helps our customer-facing teams debug integration issues and monitor usage patterns across our enterprise accounts. We are looking for someone who has experience building enterprise-grade software with strong opinions on API design, security patterns, and developer experience. You should be comfortable working in a fast-paced environment where customer needs drive priorities, and you take pride in writing code that other engineers love to integrate with. **Requirements:** - 3+ years of software engineering experience building enterprise applications or developer platforms - Strong proficiency in TypeScript/Node.js or Python with experience designing RESTful APIs and/or GraphQL services - Deep understanding of authentication, authorization, and enterprise security patterns (OAuth 2.0, SAML, API keys) - Experience with cloud infrastructure (AWS, GCP, or Azure) and containerized deployments - Strong debugging, performance optimization, and observability skills (structured logging, distributed tracing) - Experience building SDKs, client libraries, or developer-facing tools is highly valued - Familiarity with enterprise integration patterns, data pipelines, and compliance requirements (SOC 2, GDPR) a plus
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