At a Glance
- Tasks: Lead the development of cutting-edge video generation models and drive technical strategy.
- Company: Join Synthesia, a leading AI video platform backed by top investors.
- Benefits: Competitive salary, flexible working options, and opportunities for professional growth.
- Other info: Dynamic team environment with a focus on collaboration and high-velocity execution.
- Why this job: Be at the forefront of AI innovation and make a real impact in video technology.
- Qualifications: Experience in training large-scale generative models and strong leadership skills.
The predicted salary is between 90000 - 120000 £ per year.
Synthesia is the world’s leading AI video platform for business, used by over 90% of the Fortune 100. Founded in 2017, the company is headquartered in London, with offices and teams across Europe and the US. As AI continues to shape the way we live and work, Synthesia develops products to enhance visual communication and enterprise skill development, helping people work better and stay at the center of successful organizations.
Following our recent Series E funding round, where we raised $200 million, our valuation stands at $4 billion. Our total funding exceeds $530 million from premier investors including Accel, NVentures (Nvidia's VC arm), Kleiner Perkins, GV, and Evantic Capital, alongside the founders and operators of Stripe, Datadog, Miro, and Webflow.
The opportunity at Synthesia involves a commitment to human-centric avatar video generation. We are looking for a technical leader who owns the full stack end-to-end, bridging pre-training and post-training, setting long-term direction alongside research leadership, and being present at the hardest parts of the work.
About the role: Synthesia's video generation capability is core to everything we ship. It involves roughly 15 people working daily across pre-training and post-training stages, requiring a different kind of technical leadership. We're looking for a Principal Research Engineer (L7) to own the full technical stack for offline video generation. This is a senior individual contributor position with outsized scope and influence.
What you'll do:
- Own the end-to-end technical direction for offline video generation, spanning pre-training and post-training.
- Partner with research leadership and team leads to define a unified long-term roadmap.
- Identify critical technical gaps across the video generation pipeline and unblock them.
- Increase the velocity at which research ships to product.
- Coach and elevate more junior researchers and engineers.
- Help shape team structure and refine processes for cohesive execution across research.
You’ll thrive in this role if you have:
- A proven track record training large-scale video generation models from scratch.
- Deep experience with post-training techniques at scale.
- A proven track record of data quality and the ability to question it.
- The ability to think strategically about multi-year research direction.
- Strong cross-functional influence.
- A leadership style grounded in technical involvement.
- A genuine hunger to unlock new capabilities and an obsession with shipping.
Particularly relevant experience includes:
- Owning a major model generation or capability jump end-to-end.
- Working across both pre-training and post-training stages on the same model family.
- Experience operating at scale with large distributed training runs.
- Applying alignment and fine-tuning techniques in a video or multimodal context.
- Leading or significantly influencing the technical direction of a research team.
Dealbreakers: We will not be a good fit if you prefer to lead without staying technically involved, or if clear and direct communication across research and product isn't one of your strengths. This role requires presence at the frontier of the work, not above it.
Principal Applied Research Engineer in London employer: Synthesia
At Synthesia, we pride ourselves on being a fast-paced and innovative employer, where exceptional talent is not just welcomed but actively sought after. Our London headquarters fosters a dynamic work culture that prioritises autonomy, creativity, and impactful contributions, allowing employees to see their work make a real difference in the rapidly evolving AI landscape. With ample opportunities for personal and professional growth, and a commitment to maintaining a low-ego, high-trust environment, Synthesia is the ideal place for those looking to thrive in a meaningful and rewarding career.
