I make over $250k as a Meta AI researcher. Publishing research helped me land the job.

Aug 18, 2026 04:43 PM - 1 hour ago 1

Ruiyu Li headshot

Ruiyu Li is simply a investigation intelligence astatine Meta. Ruiyu Li

This as-told-to effort is based connected a speech pinch Ruiyu Li, a 26-year-old AI interrogator astatine Meta, based successful Menlo Park. Her identity, employment, and net (which includes base, bonus, and equity) person been confirmed by Business Insider. This communicative has been edited for magnitude and clarity.

I'm a investigation scientist astatine Meta specializing successful AI and instrumentality learning.

I activity connected training AI models to beforehand large-scale proposal systems, building AI-native agents to amended efficiency, and optimizing LLM post-training and inference.

I graduated from assemblage successful 2022 and vanished my Master's successful instrumentality learning astatine Carnegie Mellon University successful 2023. It was a difficult clip in the tech occupation market. I recovered profession fairs and conferences useless — but I yet landed 3 Big Tech offers. I went to Microsoft first, but later ended up astatine Meta.

That acquisition gave maine applicable lessons connected what really helped to get tech offers during a difficult market.

I had a batch of activity to show

If you want to activity successful AI, you request to beryllium acquainted pinch algorithms and coding. AI is helping people do a batch of the job, but the foundational knowledge is still necessary.

You should besides person deliverables to show the employers. I promote group who want to participate the section to summation arsenic overmuch hands-on AI acquisition arsenic imaginable truthful they tin accommodate arsenic the section evolves rapidly. I urge either interning astatine a startup aliases publishing research.

I interned astatine a startup successful assemblage and astatine Microsoft during grad school, and some required pushing AI innovations into production. When I interned astatine the startup, location were less than 10 people, and I worked straight pinch the CEO and CTO.

When I look astatine candidates, I cheque if they person investigation and projects. During competitory occupation markets, it's not capable to simply database acquisition aliases projects connected your résumé. If you person published papers aliases an open-sourced codebase that employers tin look at, that's much helpful.

Before joining Meta, I conducted world investigation astatine 8 AI labs crossed respective areas of instrumentality learning. At Meta, I've applied that instauration to accumulation AI systems, wherever exemplary value must beryllium balanced pinch scalability, reliability, efficiency, and measurable real-world impact.

The much you do, the much applicable acquisition you gain, and the quicker you tin study and accommodate to AI trends.

I focused connected a niche

If you want to work specifically successful AI, I urge going to grad school.

I decided aft assemblage that I wanted to activity much connected applied AI research. My bachelor's grade was successful machine science, but I wanted to spell much in-depth. My master's program had a batch of precocious projects that were practical, and it allowed maine to beryllium a portion of frontier research.

My internship experiences were besides very important successful landing a full-time job. Many employers want to spot tech acquisition and coagulated industry-level projects.

When I interned astatine a startup, I had the chance to activity straight connected video-editing automation utilizing AI innovations, which were state-of-the-art astatine the time. During my internship astatine Microsoft, I worked connected generative hunt and Bing Copilot, and delivered an end-to-end video procreation pipeline utilizing a multimodal LLM that was shipped to accumulation astatine Bing Search.

In some internships, I developed a niche by focusing connected large-scale AI systems successful accumulation environments and AI video generation. I developed galore transferable skills and acquisition from my internship that carried complete to my full-time role.

Do you activity successful Big Tech? We want to perceive astir really you sewage your job. Reach retired to the newsman astatine [email protected].

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