Research scientist jobs in California
553 open roles for research scientists in California as of Nov 15, 2026. Anthropic, OpenAI, Waymo, PrimeIntellect and Applied have the most. 28 are remote and the median advertised salary is $265K.
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Skills asked for in research scientist roles in California
Bars show the share of these 553 roles; one role can count in several rows.
- Applied Scientist, Product Policy Research & MeasurementOpenAI · 🇺🇸San Francisco$347K - $385KHybridPythonSQLLLM
- Senior Staff Security ResearcherZscaler · 🇺🇸Remote - USA; Santa Clara, California, USA$180K - $225KRemoteLead and abovePythonSQLGCP
- Research Scientist, Open Benchmarks Red TeamSnorkel AI · 🇺🇸New York City, NY (Hybrid); San Francisco, CA (Hybrid); U…$200K - $340KRemotePythonMachine LearningLLM
- Research Engineer (Biology)LatchBio · 🇺🇸San Francisco, USA$175K - $250KData quality
- Applied Data ResearcherFigma · 🇺🇸San Francisco, CA • New York, NY • United States$235K - $376KPythonSQLMachine Learning
- Senior AI ResearcherIvo Inc · 🇺🇸San Francisco, CA$200K - $325KSeniorLLMPyTorchTensorFlow
- Research Engineer, Privacy and AnonymizationClera · 🇺🇸San Francisco$130K - $225KPythonMachine Learning
- Staff/Sr. Staff/Principal AI research scientistWriter · 🇺🇸San Francisco, CA$234K - $384KHybridLead and abovePythonMachine LearningLLM
- AI research scientistWriter · 🇺🇸San Francisco, CA$168K - $233KHybridPythonMachine LearningLLM
- Member of Technical Staff - Research Engineer, Post-trainingPreference Model · 🇺🇸San Francisco$200K - $350KPythonMachine LearningLLM
- Member of Technical Staff - Research Engineer, RL EnvironmentsPreference Model · 🇺🇸San Francisco$200K - $350KPythonMachine LearningLLM
- AI ResearcherRadixark · 🇺🇸San Francisco$200K - $400KHybridAI
- Research Engineer, Real EnvironmentsMercor · 🇺🇸San Francisco$160K - $500KAI agentsLLM evaluation
- AI Research Engineer IIIAgility Robotics · 🇺🇸Hybrid- Any Office (Fremont, CA, Salem, OR, or Pittsburgh…$166K - $260KHybridPythonC++PyTorch
- Research Scientist, Soft Matter SimulationsLila Sciences · 🇺🇸Cambridge, MA USA; San Francisco, CA USA$176K - $304KRustPythonC++
- Principal Research Scientist – Multimodal Reasoning & Embodied AIWayve · 🇺🇸Sunnyvale, California USA$407K - $460KHybridLead and abovePythonMachine LearningLLM
- ML Research Engineer, Performance OptimizationLila Sciences · 🇺🇸Cambridge, MA USA; San Francisco, CA USA$148K - $240KDockerMachine LearningLLM
- ML Research Scientist, Environments & HarnessesLila Sciences · 🇺🇸🇬🇧Cambridge, MA USA; London, UK; San Francisco, CA USA$228K - $304KPythonLLMAirflow
- ML Research Scientist, Scientific EvaluationsLila Sciences · 🇺🇸🇬🇧Cambridge, MA USA; London, UK; San Francisco, CA USA$176K - $304KPythonLLMAirflow
- Sr. Qualitative Product Researcher, Search & Home PersonalizationPinterest · 🇺🇸San Francisco, CA, US; Remote, US$124K - $255KRemoteSenior
- Founding Research EngineerFlowgen Labs · 🇺🇸San Francisco$200K - $375KRAGSAP
- Junior Research ScientistEliseai · 🇺🇸San Francisco$150K - $230KJuniorPythonMachine LearningLLM
- Member of Technical Staff, Research EngineerPantograph · 🇺🇸San Francisco—LinuxKubernetesCUDA
- Member of Technical Staff, Research ScientistPantograph · 🇺🇸San Francisco—Kubernetes
- Researcher, AI EvaluationsFigma · 🇺🇸San Francisco, CA • New York, NY • United States$169K - $250KLLMAIQuantitative analysis
- Founding Research ScientistVerne Robotics · 🇺🇸San Francisco$200K - $350KPythonMachine LearningPyTorch
- Research Engineer, Cybersecurity RLAnthropic · 🇺🇸San Francisco, CA | New York City, NY$500K - $850KMachine LearningLLMReinforcement learning
- Research ScientistLatentlabs · 🇺🇸San Francisco—HybridPython
- Research Engineer, Cybersecurity RL (Reinforcement Learning)Anthropic · 🇺🇸San Francisco, CA | New York City, NY—Machine LearningLLMReinforcement learning
- Research Scientist II/Senior Research Scientist, Medicinal ChemistryIambic Therapeutics · 🇺🇸San Diego HQ$125K - $172KSeniorIAM
- Applied ResearcherRiver AI Inc. · 🇺🇸Palo Alto, CA$200K - $420KMachine LearningPyTorchReinforcement learning
- Research Engineer, Model Evaluation and ImprovementBenchling · 🇺🇸San Francisco, CA$136K - $167KLLMLLM evaluationDesign systems
- Research Scientist, Discovery (Engineering & Applied Sciences)Anthropic · 🇺🇸San Francisco, CA$500K - $850KPythonMachine LearningLLM
- Applied Scientist, EngineeringAnthropic · 🇺🇸San Francisco, CA$320K - $405KPythonMachine Learning
- Senior Research Engineer (Onsite/Hybrid)KoBold Metals · 🇺🇸San Francisco Bay Area$130K - $190KSeniorMachine Learning
- People Research ScientistCrusoe · 🇺🇸San Francisco, CA - US$160K - $195KPythonSQLSnowflake
- Research Engineer, ML for EDAAlpha Design Ai Inc · 🇺🇸San Jose—PythonMachine LearningLLM
- Research Scientist, Pre-training ResearchChai Discovery · 🇺🇸San Francisco office—CAD
- Research Scientist, Applied ResearchChai Discovery · 🇺🇸San Francisco office—Machine LearningLLM evaluationCAD
- User ResearcherRoblox · 🇺🇸San Mateo, CA, United States$172K - $205KPythonSQLR
- Research Scientist – Multimodal Foundation Models & Visual ReasoningElorian Ai Inc · 🇺🇸Palo Alto—PythonMachine LearningPyTorch
- Research Lead, Open Benchmarks GrantsSnorkel AI · 🇺🇸New York City, NY (Hybrid); San Francisco, CA (Hybrid); U…$231K - $390KRemoteLead and aboveLLM evaluation
- Research Engineer, InfrastructureHarvey · 🇺🇸San Francisco$230K - $450KHybridPythonPyTorchLLM evaluation
- Research Engineer / Scientist, Data & EvalsHarvey · 🇺🇸San Francisco$230K - $450KHybridPythonLLMAI agents
- Research Engineer / Scientist, Reinforcement LearningHarvey · 🇺🇸San Francisco$230K - $450KHybridPythonLLMAI agents
- Research Engineer, AI SecurityTolmo · 🇺🇸San Francisco—HybridGoPythonTypeScript
- Research Engineer / Scientist, Pre-trainingAnthropic · 🇺🇸Remote-Friendly (Travel-Required) | San Francisco, CA | S…$500K - $850KRemotePythonMachine LearningLLM
- 2027 Summer Intern, PhD, Research Scientist InternWaymo · 🇺🇸Mountain View, CA, USA—InternPythonLLMDeep learning
- Research Scientist/Engineer (Fundamental Research)Apolloresearch · 🇬🇧🇺🇸London & San Francisco$350K - $590KPythonLLM
- Lead Research Scientist/Engineer (Embedded Evaluations)Apolloresearch · 🇬🇧🇺🇸London & San Francisco$350K - $590KLead and abovePython
Showing the newest 50. See all 553 in search
Who is hiring for research scientist roles in California
Where research scientist roles in California are
- 🇺🇸United States553
- 🇺🇸California553
- 🇺🇸San Francisco Bay Area514
- 🇺🇸New York, NY53
- 🇺🇸Seattle, WA27
- 🇪🇺Europe10
- 🇺🇸Boston, MA10
- 🇬🇧United Kingdom9
- 🇬🇧London9
- 🇺🇸Los Angeles, CA8
A role that lists several places is counted in each of them.
What research scientist roles in California pay, by level
| Level in the title | Median advertised salary | Roles counted |
|---|---|---|
| No level in the title | $265K | 294 |
| Senior | $198K | 29 |
| Lead and above | $280K | 48 |
Medians of the midpoints of advertised yearly US-dollar ranges; a level needs at least 15 such roles. Advertised, not verified pay.
Questions about research scientist jobs in California
- How many research scientist jobs in California are open right now?
- There are 553 open research scientist jobs in California at 204 companies on Jobs Every Hour as of Nov 15, 2026. 27 of them were posted in the last seven days. The list is rebuilt every hour from the employers' own careers pages.
- Which companies have the most research scientist jobs in California?
- Right now the most openings are at Anthropic (41), OpenAI (33), Waymo (19), PrimeIntellect (18) and Applied (11). The ranking changes as companies open and close roles.
- Are there remote research scientist jobs in California?
- 28 of the 553 open research scientist jobs in California (5%) are listed as remote. Remote roles are often limited to certain countries or time zones, so check the location line of each job.
- What do research scientist jobs in California pay?
- The median advertised salary is $265K, based on 374 open roles that publish a yearly US-dollar range. The middle half of those roles advertise between $200K and $325K. These are advertised ranges, not verified pay. Most employers here are technology companies, so the figures run above the wider market for the same work.
- Is it hard to get one of the research scientist jobs in California?
- 31 of the 553 open research scientist jobs in California (6%) are for beginners: junior roles and internships. Of the 148 postings that state experience, the median asks for 4 years. 204 companies are hiring and 27 roles were posted in the last seven days. Matching your resume to the skills each posting names helps most; the free resume builder shows the match.
- How is AI changing research scientist jobs in California?
- 436 of the 553 open research scientist jobs in California (79%) ask for AI or machine-learning skills, most often Machine Learning, LLM, PyTorch. Employers still list 553 such roles today at 204 companies. Counted from the postings' own text on Nov 15, 2026.
- What skills do research scientist jobs in California ask for?
- Most often Python (49%), Machine Learning (47%), LLM (39%), PyTorch (37%), Reinforcement learning (24%) of the 553 open postings, counted from their own text on Nov 15, 2026.
- Which job titles come up most in research scientist jobs in California?
- Research Engineer (128), Research Scientist (76), Researcher (28), Member of Technical Staff (18), Applied Researcher (16): the most common titles among the 553 open roles, without the level and place notes in brackets.
- Are research scientist jobs in California in demand in 2026?
- 553 research scientist jobs in California are open on Jobs Every Hour today at 204 companies, 0.4% of all 148,162 open jobs here; 27 were posted in the last seven days. The median advertised salary is $265K. 28 (5%) can be done remotely.
- How do I apply for research scientist jobs in California?
- Open a job and press “Apply on company site”. You go straight to the employer's own careers page and apply there. Jobs Every Hour needs no account and charges nothing for applying.
More like Research scientist jobs in California
- Research scientist jobs 1,358
- Jobs in California 28,322
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