Research Engineer - Applied Research

Luma AI, Inc.•Palo Alto, CA

42d•$175,000 - $250,000

About The Position

At Luma, the Applied Research team brings our most advanced generative models to life. We sit at the intersection of Research and Product - bridging raw innovation with real creative tools used by millions. Our mission is to make Luma's multimodal foundation models more expressive, controllable, and reliable, turning frontier research into magical, production-ready experiences.

Requirements

Strong engineering skills in Python and deep learning frameworks (preferably PyTorch); comfortable moving between research prototypes and production systems.
Hands-on experience with modern visual generative models (diffusion, transformers, or related architectures).
Demonstrated ability to tune, refine, and deploy models in real products using human feedback and creative evaluation.
Curiosity and passion for multimodal AI - understanding how models perceive, generate, and evolve in the wild.

Nice To Haves

Familiarity with large-scale training infrastructure (e.g., SLURM, Ray, or Kubernetes) is a plus.

Responsibilities

Develop and maintain model variants purpose-built for specific product features and partner applications - adapting architectures, datasets, and fine-tuning strategies.
Drive continual improvements to Luma's core model-powered experiences, leading iterations that push quality, reliability, and creative depth across versions.
Collaborate closely with Product, Research, and Design to translate creative intent and user feedback into refined model behavior, intuitive controls, and new capabilities.
Build internal tools and workflows that accelerate model iteration and evaluation - enabling faster experimentation, deeper insight, and tighter feedback loops.
Contribute to applied research in safety, authenticity, and control - spanning topics like moderation, watermarking, fairness, and color science.