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About This Role
YinzCam is seeking exceptional Research Engineers to lead the development of AI\-driven video analysis and game analytics systems that power next\-generation fan experiences in professional sports. This is a rare opportunity to conduct publishable research while building products that reach millions of fans in real time.
You'll work at the cutting edge of computer vision and machine learning applied to sports, collaborating with leading academic researchers at Carnegie Mellon University while taking your innovations from prototype to production. This role demands both research rigor and product sensibility. We value publication records and engineering excellence equally. This is a full\-time, onsite position based in Pittsburgh, PA.You will be at the forefront of establishing a new, in\-house AI Research Lab within YinzCam, and working with multiple sports teams, leagues, and venues to apply AI to the fan experience and to business operations.
CORE RESPONSIBILITIES.
Video Analysis \& Computer Vision* Design and develop AI systems for real\-time video understanding of live sporting events (player detection, action recognition, spatial analysis, etc.)
- Build robust computer vision pipelines that handle challenging real\-world footage (lighting, occlusion, multiple camera angles)
- Explore novel architectures and techniques in modern CV to solve sports\-specific problems
Large\-Scale Game Analytics* Develop AI systems to extract, aggregate, and interpret game data at scale across multiple sports, teams, and seasons
- Create spatial and temporal analytics frameworks that surface actionable insights from video and sensor data
- Build analytics platforms that scale from single games to league\-wide deployments
AI\-Powered Fan Experiences* Translate video understanding and analytics into engaging, intuitive experiences for millions of fans
- Collaborate on product features that leverage AI (real\-time highlights, personalized stats, interactive visualizations, etc.)
- Ensure research outputs move through the full product development lifecycle
CORE GOALS.
- Publish Your Work: We intend to publish the work coming out of these research projects. Papers will be published in top\-tier CV/ML venues and presented at conferences.
- Bridge Academia \& Industry: Work directly with Prof. Priya Narasimhan (Carnegie Mellon University) and her research team to translate academic innovations into applied systems. Mentor CMU students, collaborate on research projects, and shape the next generation of sports AI researchers.
- From Research to Product: Own the path from prototype to production. You'll participate in design reviews, handle real\-world deployment challenges, and see your ideas impact actual fan experiences at scale.
CORE REQUIREMENTS.* PhD in Computer Vision, Machine Learning, Computer Science, or a closely related field
- Strong publication track record in top\-tier venues (CVPR, ICCV, ECCV, NeurIPS, ICML, ICLR, etc.)
- Deep expertise in modern computer vision techniques: neural networks, object detection, semantic/instance segmentation, action recognition, optical flow, pose estimation, or related areas
- Proficiency in ML frameworks (PyTorch, TensorFlow) and modern deep learning practices
- Strong software engineering fundamentals: Python, Java, AWS, SQL, Redshift, version control, testing, CI/CD
- Demonstrated ability to implement complex systems end\-to\-end
- Background in sports analytics, sports tech, or applied computer vision (industry, research, or both)
- Genuine enthusiasm for sports and AI
- Genuine enthusiasm for going beyond book learning, and to have ideas go into large\-scale production
HOW TO APPLY
Please submit:* Your CV (with publication list)
- A cover letter describing your research interests and why you're excited about this opportunity
- Links to your top 2\-3 publications hat best represent your work
Role Details
About This Role
Research Engineers bridge the gap between research and production. They implement papers, build experiment infrastructure, optimize training pipelines, and make research prototypes production-ready. They're the engineers who make research work at scale.
The role sits at a unique intersection. You need to understand the math well enough to implement novel architectures correctly, and you need the engineering chops to make them run efficiently on distributed systems. When a research scientist has a breakthrough idea, you're the person who turns it from a notebook prototype into a training pipeline that runs on 256 GPUs.
Across the 3,708 AI roles we're tracking, Research Engineer positions make up 2% of the market. At YinzCam, Inc., this role fits into their broader AI and engineering organization.
Research Engineer roles are growing as AI labs recognize that research velocity depends on engineering quality. The role is less competitive than Research Scientist (no PhD required), but the bar for engineering skill is very high. These roles are concentrated at major labs and well-funded startups.
What the Work Looks Like
A typical week involves: implementing a new attention mechanism from a recent paper, profiling and optimizing a training pipeline that's bottlenecked on data loading, building evaluation infrastructure for a new benchmark, debugging distributed training issues across a GPU cluster, and pair-programming with a research scientist on their latest experiment. The work is deeply technical.
Research Engineer roles are growing as AI labs recognize that research velocity depends on engineering quality. The role is less competitive than Research Scientist (no PhD required), but the bar for engineering skill is very high. These roles are concentrated at major labs and well-funded startups.
Skills Required
Strong software engineering fundamentals plus ML knowledge. Python, C++, and CUDA experience are common requirements. You'll need to read papers and turn ideas into working code. Distributed systems experience (especially distributed training) is highly valued. Performance optimization skills separate great candidates from good ones.
Experience with large-scale training infrastructure (FSDP, DeepSpeed, Megatron), GPU programming (CUDA, Triton), and the internals of ML frameworks (PyTorch internals, custom autograd functions) is what makes candidates stand out. The best research engineers can debug issues that span the full stack from GPU memory management to numerical precision to algorithmic correctness.
Strong postings mention the team's recent research, the infrastructure scale, and the specific technical challenges. They often list the research areas you'd support. Look for roles that emphasize both implementation quality and research understanding.
Compensation Benchmarks
Research Engineer roles pay a median of $280,000 based on 147 positions with disclosed compensation. Mid-level AI roles across all categories have a median of $200,000.
Across all AI roles, the market median is $217,500. Top-quartile compensation starts at $272,100. The 90th percentile reaches $325,000. For comparison, the highest-paying categories include AI Safety ($300,000) and AI Architect ($254,798). By seniority level: Entry: $120,000; Mid: $200,000; Senior: $230,000; Director: $272,150; VP: $250,000.
YinzCam, Inc. AI Hiring
YinzCam, Inc. has 1 open AI role right now. They're hiring across Research Engineer. Based in Pittsburgh, PA, US.
Location Context
Across all AI roles, 14% (508 positions) offer remote work, while 3,180 require on-site attendance. Top AI hiring metros: New York (1,045 roles, $220,000 median); San Francisco (810 roles, $277,088 median); Los Angeles (397 roles, $215,000 median).
Career Path
Common paths into Research Engineer roles include Software Engineer, ML Engineer, Research Intern.
From here, career progression typically leads toward Senior Research Engineer, Research Scientist, ML Architect.
This is one of the best entry points into AI research without a PhD. Build a strong engineering portfolio with ML projects, contribute to open-source ML frameworks, and demonstrate that you can implement complex ideas correctly and efficiently. The transition to Research Scientist is possible with published first-author work, which some research engineer roles support.
What to Expect in Interviews
Technical screens test both engineering skill and research understanding. Expect coding rounds with performance-critical implementations (GPU optimization, efficient data loading). Be prepared to discuss papers relevant to the team's research area and explain how you'd implement key ideas. System design questions focus on training infrastructure: distributed training, experiment tracking, and compute resource management.
When evaluating opportunities: Strong postings mention the team's recent research, the infrastructure scale, and the specific technical challenges. They often list the research areas you'd support. Look for roles that emphasize both implementation quality and research understanding.
AI Hiring Overview
The AI job market has 3,708 open positions tracked in our dataset. By seniority: 102 entry-level, 1,705 mid-level, 1,469 senior, and 432 leadership roles (Director, VP, C-Level). Remote roles make up 14% of the market (508 positions). The remaining 3,180 roles require on-site or hybrid attendance.
The market median for AI roles is $217,500. Top-quartile compensation starts at $272,100. The 90th percentile reaches $325,000. Highest-paying categories: AI Safety ($300,000 median, 21 roles); Research Engineer ($280,000 median, 147 roles); AI Architect ($254,798 median, 67 roles).
Research Engineer roles are growing as AI labs recognize that research velocity depends on engineering quality. The role is less competitive than Research Scientist (no PhD required), but the bar for engineering skill is very high. These roles are concentrated at major labs and well-funded startups.
The AI Job Market Today
The AI job market spans 3,708 open positions across 16 role categories. The largest categories by volume: AI/ML Engineer (2,605), Data Scientist (310), AI Software Engineer (259). These three account for the majority of open positions, though smaller categories often have higher per-role compensation because of specialized skill requirements.
The seniority mix tells a story about where AI teams are in their maturity. Entry-level roles (102) are outnumbered by mid-level (1,705) and senior (1,469) positions, reflecting that most companies are past the 'build a team from scratch' phase and need experienced engineers who can ship production systems. Leadership roles (Director, VP, C-Level) total 432 positions, representing the bottleneck between technical execution and organizational strategy.
Remote work availability sits at 14% of all AI roles (508 positions), with 3,180 requiring on-site or hybrid attendance. The remote share has stabilized after the post-pandemic correction. Senior and specialized roles (Research Scientist, ML Architect) are more likely to be remote-eligible than entry-level positions, partly because experienced hires have more negotiating power and partly because these roles require less hands-on mentorship.
AI compensation is structured in clear tiers. The market median sits at $217,500. Top-quartile roles start at $272,100, and the 90th percentile reaches $325,000. These figures include base salary with disclosed compensation. Total compensation (including equity, bonuses, and sign-on) runs 20-40% higher at companies that offer those components.
Category matters for compensation. AI Safety roles lead at $300,000 median, while Prompt Engineer roles sit at $140,000. The spread between highest and lowest-paying categories reflects the premium on specialized technical skills versus broader analytical roles.
The most in-demand skills across all AI postings: Python (1,890 postings), Aws (1,103 postings), Azure (877 postings), Rag (855 postings), Gcp (631 postings), Prompt Engineering (560 postings), Pytorch (545 postings), Claude (498 postings). Python dominates, appearing in the vast majority of role descriptions regardless of category. Cloud platform experience (AWS, GCP, Azure) is the second most common requirement. The newer entrants to the top skills list (RAG, vector databases, LLM APIs) reflect the shift from traditional ML toward generative AI applications.
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