AI Research Scientist, Hardware AI Systems - CA, Santa Clara, United States
$178,500 - $306,000 USD yearly
Originally posted 2 July 2026 by the employer.
About the role
AMD is hiring an AI Research Scientist, Hardware AI Systems, to develop AI systems that generalize across hardware engineering contexts, SoC programs, toolchains, process nodes, and teams without bespoke retraining for every program. The focus spans metareasoning, representation learning across RTL, verification, and physical design flows, and learning under high- or mixed-latency rewards typical of silicon signoff.
What you'll do
- Research transfer and multi-task learning for engineering agents across IP blocks, tools, and program generations. - Develop metareasoning policies for budgeting expensive EDA steps, selecting abstractions, and recovering from tool or data failures. - Build cross-program benchmarks and datasets that expose generalization gaps and track progress over time. - Collaborate with RL scientists on reward shaping and credit assignment when feedback is slow or heterogeneous. - Publish at top venues where appropriate and maintain internal technical standards for generalization claims backed by evidence.
What you'll need
- Research experience in machine learning with focus on distribution shift, domain adaptation, and structured priors. - Experience formulating problems with domain experts and treating hardware signoff criteria as constraints. - Background in Computer Science, Machine Learning, or a related field.
Nice to have
- Deep technical expertise and research experience in transfer learning, meta-learning, intelligent agents, and long-horizon reinforcement learning (RL). - Exposure to hardware development (RTL, verification, PD, or bring-up). - Experience with Large Language Models (LLM) tool use, planning, or hierarchical control in real toolchains. - PhD in Computer Science, Machine Learning, or a related field.
Skills: transfer learning, meta-learning, reinforcement learning, hardware development, Large Language Models
This role has been open 111 days — well above the 83-day median for AI/ML Hardware Engineering roles.
AI/ML Hardware Engineering · AI ML Hardware
|
Open roles in category
511
|
Median days open
83 d
|
Median salary
$236k
|
See the full market breakdown ▾Category comparison, skills in demand, and who else is hiring
| Metric | AMD | All employers we track in this specialty (511 roles · 76 employers) |
|---|---|---|
| Open roles in this specialty | 38 | 511 |
| Open roles in the wider Software, Firmware & Systems family | 406 | 6296 · 145 employers |
| Median days open | 95 d | 83 d (+12 d vs this employer) |
| Median salary (USD postings) | — | $236k |
Skills observed across this category: transfer learning, meta-learning, reinforcement learning, hardware development, Large Language Models
Who's hiring in this category
- Qualcomm · 103 open roles · median 112 d
- NVIDIA · 91 open roles · median 56 d
- AMD (this employer) · 40 open roles · median 85 d
- Micron Technology · 27 open roles · median 56 d
- Analog Devices · 18 open roles · median 39 d
- Mobileye · 18 open roles · median 84 d
How we counted: 511 open AI/ML Hardware Engineering (AI ML Hardware) roles from 76 employers tracked in the SemiconductorJobs index, counted 21 Oct 2026. Specialty figures count only roles carrying this exact specialty label, so an employer's related work in neighbouring specialties is not included there — it is counted in the wider Software, Firmware & Systems family row. Figures refresh nightly.