LLM Researcher

LLM Researcher

Division: DATUM, Impac Exploration Services Location: Remote, Oklahoma City (OK), Houston (TX) Type: Full-Time

About the Role

We're not hiring you to fine-tune prompts. We're hiring you to obsolete them.

DATUM is building a small team of ML researchers who think bigger than today's architectures. We're the ML division of a 40-year-old energy company with startup DNA and the resources to match our ambitions. While others debate scaling laws, we're questioning the fundamentals.

Here's the deal: We have compute. We have some of the world's most complex operational data. We have domain experts who've been modeling physical systems since before transformers were invented. What we need is someone who sees opportunity where others see constraints.

This role is for researchers who read papers and think "that's clever, but here's what they missed." Who understand why current architectures fail on certain problems—and have ideas about what comes next. Who can ship code on Monday and submit to NeurIPS on Friday.

Fair warning: Do exceptional work here and you'll probably get poached. When OpenAI or Anthropic comes calling with their offer, we'll write your recommendation letter. Building things that make Big Tech nervous is how we measure success.

What You'll Actually Do

Requirements

Bonus Points

Why This Matters

Energy is a trillion-dollar industry running on Excel and intuition. The intersection of ML and energy systems is barely explored. While everyone else fights over consumer chatbots, we're working on problems that actually move the needle on energy independence, efficiency, and human progress.

If you want to optimize ad clicks, this isn't for you. If you want to build models that understand how the physical world works—and ship them to people who operate it—let's talk.