AI Researcher

At Sonar, we are seeking an ambitious senior researcher to join our cross-disciplinary team, innovating and developing the next generation of solutions to build enterprise-grade coding agents and models. You will harness Sonar’s deep experience in static analysis, and combine it with your experience and leading techniques in large language model post-training. If you are interested in being hands-on with state-of-the-art research, building practical solutions that deliver high-impact for customers, and working within a team of innovative researchers and engineers, this role is for you., * Outcome Driven Development: Work in a team developing and implementing advanced products that enable customers to post-train models to power their agentic coding practices. These agents need to generate high-quality code that meets their enterprise standards and software development best practices.

• Translate Prototypes to Products: Collaborate closely with researchers, research engineers, MLOps and engineers within the team to design hypotheses and experiments, iterate proofs-of-concept quickly and develop successful prototypes into cutting-edge products.
• Subject Matter Expert: You will contribute and discuss ideas within our cross-disciplinary team, driving towards the next generation of coding model post-training for enterprises.
• Spearhead Research & Innovation: Stay up-to-date with the latest LLM and agentic developments; you are driven by learning and teaching others. You will need to explain complex technical details and concepts to both technical and non-technical audiences.

• An advanced academic background (Master’s or PhD) in Computer Science, Machine Learning, or a related quantitative field.
• 4+ years industry experience in machine learning, with a solid understanding of modern software engineering practices and tools.
• Fluency with Python including core ML frameworks, experience with Rust or any of SonarQube’s flagship languages (C#, C++, JS/TS, Java) is a plus.
• Expertise in post-training of large language models, including:
• Policy optimization algorithms (e.g. GRPO, PPO)
• Verifier-based RL frameworks (RLVR)
• Supervised fine-tuning (SFT)
• Data-centric AI methods, including synthetic data and curation
• Parameter-efficient fine-tuning (PEFT)
• Preference and Safety Alignment
• Experience of driving research projects, delivering valuable findings and prototypes, and then converting them into products.
• Excellent communication skills in English and a talent for explaining complex scientific topics clearly and concisely.

Sonar is driving the future of agent-centric software development. As the leader in AI code verification and governance, we solve a critical problem: ensuring that software generated by AI-assisted developers or autonomous agents is reliable, secure, and maintainable.

Integrating seamlessly with Claude Code, Codex, Cursor, GitHub Copilot, Gemini, and Devin, we help over 75% of the Fortune 100 build trusted, reliable, compliant software. Customers who use Sonar are 44% less likely to report an outage due to AI-generated code.

We believe code verification is the critical missing link in the Agent-Centric Development Cycle (AC/DC). Industry giants like Nvidia, ServiceNow, Booking.com, Goldman Sachs, AstraZeneca, and Ford Motor Company count on us to provide independent, explainable, consistent review and governance of their AI-generated code via products like:

• SonarQube: The world’s leading AI code review and verification platform.
• SonarQube Foundation Agent: Currently topping the leaderboards for agentic software repair.
• SonarSweep & Sonar Context Augmentation: Providing the enterprise-grade context and constraints agents need to be truly effective.

Our team operates across global hubs in Austin, Bochum, Dubai, Geneva, London, Singapore, Tokyo, and Washington D.C. We move with a mindset we call CODE:

• Committed to our customers and community.
• Obsessed with quality.
• Deliberate in our decisions.
• Effective as one team.

With over $400M in revenue and profitable, fast-paced growth, we are building the backbone of the AI software revolution. If you’re hungry to have an impact, want to build at a fast pace, and ready to work at the forefront of AI, we want to hear from you.