Math + coding bar rising
Hiring signals across labs stress advanced ML theory, mathematical maturity, and production-grade coding (PyTorch/JAX/TensorFlow, C++/CUDA), with internships at places like Superfone and Agoda highlighting practical LLM and framework experience as entry points ( ).
Google DeepMind publicly listed roughly 90 open roles in March 2026, and multiple Research Scientist postings explicitly list a PhD (or equivalent practical research experience) and a track record of publications as hiring prerequisites. (startup.jobs) OpenAI’s “Research Scientist, Mathematical Sciences” role frames work in mathematics, theoretical physics, and theoretical computer science to advance model tooling and scientific workflows, and recent OpenAI research-scientist listings show San Francisco salary bands reported around $250K–$445K. (jobs.thrivecap.com) Anthropic’s careers pages and Greenhouse listings present research and engineering as deliberately blended responsibilities and advertise roles that touch model infrastructure, pretraining, and running multi‑thousand‑accelerator training jobs. (anthropic.com) Public reports on Meta’s Research Scientist hiring note a typical interview loop including two LeetCode-style coding rounds plus systems-design interviews, reflecting an evaluation mix of algorithmic coding and large‑system design. (ahl27.com) Agoda’s student programs publish an 8–10 week Summer Internship (June–July) and off‑cycle internships from 4–16 weeks, and recent Agoda internship postings list degree requirements and paid stipends in regional offers. (careersatagoda.com) Public internship listings for Superfone appear on platforms like Internshala and local job boards, showing active paid internship postings in 2025–2026 for roles advertised in Bengaluru and elsewhere. (internshala.com) Several posted roles across labs and startups now call for production‑level systems skills—performance and GPU teams advertise C++/CUDA work, custom kernel and multi‑GPU orchestration experience, and dedicated Performance/Accelerator Engineering positions. (jobs.generalcatalyst.com)
