Careers
Research Engineer — UPII
Own a research vector within the UPII program end to end — framing, prototyping, evaluation, write-up.
About the role
DataFrontier is building Unified Personal Intelligence Infrastructure — the systems, protocols, and primitives that let an individual's data, memory, and intent compose into an intelligence that serves them, not a platform. UPII is the core research program of the lab. It is also the most open-ended.
As a Research Engineer on UPII, you will own a substantial slice of the program end to end. Your work will span framing the research question, building the prototype, designing and running evaluations, and writing the result up so that other researchers and engineers can build on it. We do not separate research from engineering on this team — the people who frame the problem are the people who build the system and the people who publish the result.
Future versions of UPII will require us to make hard choices about what the substrate actually is — how memory is structured, how identity composes across agents, how permissioned reasoning works under real load. The person we hire for this role will help us make those choices. You will not be executing on a roadmap someone else wrote. You will be participating in writing it.
What you'll do
- Own a research vector — take a slice of UPII from open question to written result.
- Frame the problem — decide what is worth answering before building anything.
- Build the prototype — implement the system, not a slide about the system.
- Design the evaluation — define how you will know it worked, and run it honestly.
- Write it up — publish the result so others can build on it.
- Shape the substrate — help decide how memory, identity, and permissioned reasoning compose.
- Work in the open — share progress early; research and engineering are one job here.
Who we're looking for
- Research-engineering range — you can frame a question and ship the system that answers it.
- Strong fundamentals — in machine learning, systems, or both.
- A finisher — you close problems rather than collecting them.
- Clear writing — you can explain a result so someone else can build on it.
- Comfort with ambiguity — the roadmap is partly yours to write.
- Taste for simple designs — you reach for the smallest thing that could work.
- Self-direction — you do not need a manager scheduling your week.
- Relevant background — in LLMs, retrieval, personal-data systems, or distributed storage.
Nice to have
- Published work — papers, technical notes, or open-source others use.
- Personal-data or memory systems — experience with the substrate UPII is about.
- Agent systems — you have built something with LLM agents in production.
- Cryptography or identity — exposure to keys, capabilities, or provenance.
- Open-source maintenance — you have kept alive something others depend on.
How we hire
- A short application: CV, links, a brief note on a UPII research direction you'd want to work on, optional writing sample
- A 45-minute conversation with one of the founders
- A paid take-home problem, scoped to ~6-8 hours
- A half-day on-site in Bangalore
- An offer within 7 working days of the on-site, or a clear no with feedback
We do not ghost. Whether or not we move forward, you will hear from us at every stage.
What we offer
- Hybrid: 3 days in office (Tuesday/Wednesday/Thursday at HSR Layout, Bangalore), 2 days remote
- Annual research budget for books, conferences, courses, and compute — your call on how to spend it
- Conference attendance support for relevant venues
- Health insurance for self, spouse, two children, two parents
- 28 days of paid time off, plus public holidays
- Compensation is calibrated to seniority and prior outcomes, discussed at the offer stage