AI Researcher
Location: Remote (NYC Preference)
Type: Full-Time
Reports to: Head of AI
About Astera Holdings
Astera Holdings is building the intelligence architecture for prediction itself — a quantitative infrastructure designed to transform how humanity perceives, prices, and acts on uncertainty.
Our ecosystem operates through three synergistic pillars, each reinforcing a unified mission to institutionalize foresight as an investable science:
- Astera AI (B2C) — democratizing event investing and transforming speculation into structured, data-driven decision-making for the global market.
- Astera Capital (Hedge fund) — establishing prediction markets as a recognized, institutional asset class through disciplined quantitative strategies. HFT, CV, Fundamental / Directional.
- Astera Analytics (Enterprise AI B2B) — extending our predictive intelligence to solve complex, real-world problems across industries.
At the core of this ecosystem is the Reflexivity Engine — Astera’s continuously learning system that captures, models, and predicts real-world outcomes across sports, economics, and geopolitics.
Astera’s mission extends beyond forecasting. We are engineering the underlying science of foresight itself — the architecture through which the future becomes knowable, actionable, and investable.
Role Overview
Astera is seeking an AI Researcher to push the boundaries of our AI models, treating our unique problem space as an R&D playground to achieve breakthroughs in language and vision-language modeling. This role is ideal for a scientist who wants to see their ideas rapidly integrated into a product.
Key Responsibilities
- Advanced Model Innovation: Conduct research and experiments on improving Astera’s core AI models, including fine-tuning LLMs and exploring VLMs.
- Vertical Model Fine-Tuning: Develop strategies for vertical AI, making general models experts in “event investing” using methods like prompt tuning, LoRA, or RLHF.
- Multimodal Fusion Research: Work with the CV team to combine visual data with textual analysis to enable richer reasoning.
- Benchmarking & Evaluation: Establish internal benchmarks for our AI performance and devise and run evaluations to quantify improvements.
- Collaboration with Engineering: Provide research brainpower to the AI Engineering team, supplying new model candidates and optimizations.
- Knowledge Leadership: Stay on top of the latest papers in NLP, multimodal AI, and reinforcement learning.
Qualifications
- Required: Deep knowledge of deep learning model architectures, from Transformers and LLMs to vision CNNs/ViTs.
- Required: Hands-on experience training models on GPU clusters.
- Required: A research mindset with curiosity, originality, and a track record of creative problem-solving in AI.
- Required: Ability to work well in a small-team startup environment.
- Preferred: PhD (or MSc with significant research experience) in Machine Learning, AI, or a related field.
- Preferred: Published papers or thesis work on NLP or multimodal models.
- Preferred: Genuine interest in sports analytics, finance, or gaming.
- Required: GRIT
To Apply
careers@astera.holdings
