Research Engineer - Benchmarks

Firecrawl•Toronto, ON

7d•$250,000 - $290,000•Hybrid

About The Position

Every week, someone asks which data provider is actually best: for company records, for finding the right person, for fresh job listings. Right now the answers come from the vendors themselves. You'll build the independent version. You'll run rigorous, automated, public benchmarks of the providers in Alexandria and beyond, and publish them weekly. The same results will feed straight back into Alexandria so it learns which provider to call for which job. This isn't our internal evals role. You're measuring the market, in public, where every number will be challenged by the vendors it ranks. You'll own it end to end: the datasets, the ground truth, the scoring, the harness, the weekly release, and the loop into Alexandria's provider selection. No one hands you a methodology. You write it, defend it, and ship it every week.

Requirements

You've shipped evals or benchmarks, and you can explain exactly why your results were trustworthy.
You've done this somewhere that matters: a frontier lab, a data company like Scale, Surge, micro1 or Mercor, a third-party benchmark org, or a public benchmark project. OSS contributors very welcome.
You're strong in Python and API integrations, and comfortable with messy vendor APIs, rate limits, and inconsistent schemas.
You know how to build test sets and scoring methods: sampling, labeling, inter-rater agreement, and when to trust an LLM judge and when not to.
You use AI heavily and keep upgrading your own workflow. You ship without waiting for instructions.
You write findings clearly for engineers, marketers, and the vendors on the other side of the leaderboard.

Nice To Haves

Someone who wants to run benchmarks someone else designed.
Someone who picks the metric that makes the story look good. Our numbers have to survive the vendors who lose.
A pure researcher who won't build the harness, or a pure engineer who won't think hard about methodology.
Someone who needs a fully specced ticket, or a quarter, to ship the first result.

Responsibilities

Design and run head-to-head benchmarks of data providers against verified ground truth. For example: Apollo vs. FullEnrich vs. DataLegion on company details. FullEnrich vs. DataLegion on finding the right person and their current employer and title. Built In vs. ZipRecruiter on relevant, fresh, non-duplicate job listings.
Build and maintain the test datasets and ground truth, and keep them from going stale or leaking.
Own the automated harness and the weekly benchmark release. Every run has to be reproducible, versioned, and defensible.
Measure what buyers actually care about: accuracy, coverage, freshness, speed, and cost.
Work with marketing to ship public leaderboard pages that are useful and hold up under scrutiny.
Close the loop into Alexandria so benchmark results change which provider gets called for what.
Keep expanding the categories we benchmark, inside Alexandria and beyond it.

Benefits

Salary that makes sense: $250,000–$290,000 USD/year, / $210,000–$224,000 CAD/year (Toronto), based on impact, not tenure
Own a piece: Gain competitive equity in what you're helping build
Generous PTO: 15 days mandatory, anything after 24 days, just ask (holidays excluded). Take the time you need to recharge
Parental leave: 12 weeks fully paid, for all parents
Wellness stipend: $100 USD/month for the gym, therapy, massages, or whatever keeps you human
Learning & Development: Expense up to $1,000 USD/year toward anything that helps you grow professionally
Team offsites: A change of scenery, minus the trust falls
Sabbatical: 3 paid months off after 4 years, do something fun and new
Full coverage, no red tape: Medical, dental, and vision (100% for employees, 50% for partner and kids). No weird loopholes, just care that works
Life & Disability insurance: Employer-paid basic life and AD&D, short-term disability, and long-term disability. Coverage for life's curveballs
Virtual care and a health guide: Teladoc for the couch doctor visit, plus Rightway to answer coverage questions and fight billing errors for you
Mental health: Talkspace, therapy and psychiatry on your schedule
Fertility and family building: Carrot, covering you and your partner
EAP: Free confidential counseling, legal and financial consults, and online will prep through Guardian
401(k) plan: Retirement might be a ways off, but future-you will thank you
Pre-tax benefits: HSA, FSA, and commuter benefits to help your wallet out a bit
Supplemental options: Extra life and AD&D, accident, critical illness, hospital indemnity, plus pet, legal, and identity protection through MetLife
Full coverage, no red tape: Extended health, dental, and vision through Manulife (Diamond, the top tier), 100% employer-paid for you, your partner, and your kids
Life & Disability insurance: Employer-paid life, AD&D, short-term disability, and long-term disability. Coverage for life's curveballs
Virtual care: Dialogue Premium, so you can see a doctor or nurse from your couch, any hour
Mental health: Talkspace Elite, therapy and psychiatry on your schedule
Fertility and family building: Carrot, covering you and your partner
Retirement: Group RRSP through Wealthsimple, so future-you can thank you
SF HQ perks: Snacks, drinks, team lunches, intense ping pong, and peak startup energy
E-Bike transportation: A loaner electric bike to get you around the city, on us
Toronto Hub perks: Snacks, drinks, team lunches, glass-walled views down University Avenue, and a home base steps from Union Station
Transit, covered: A PRESTO card loaded for GO Transit, subway, and streetcar, plus station parking if you drive to the train. Winter-proof, on us