Researcher- Applied AI and Machine Learning - United States
$125,000 - $175,000 USD yearly
Originally posted 7 October 2026 by the employer.
This role is for a research role solving ambiguous, realworld AI problems for semi-conductor test-AI.
About the role
This role will solve and deploy solutions to hard, real-world problems in semiconductor testing. This newly created position in the AI Group is for a research role solving ambiguous, realworld AI problems for semi-conductor test-AI.
What you'll do
- Collaborate with the engineering team and domain experts to evaluate and scope ambiguous problems, turning a vague pain point into a concrete, measurable target.
- Develop and fine-tune models, algorithms, and retrieval/knowledge-graph methods to evaluate and improve proposed solutions.
- Design and build agent systems and the RAG/knowledge-retrieval pipelines that connect AI reasoning to domain-specific toolsets.
- Work with the engineering team to deploy rapid solutions into production, not just research prototypes.
- Stay ahead of emerging ML/AI research and tooling.
- Explore emerging platform capabilities as the system matures, proposing new project directions.
What you'll need
- Advanced degree in Computer Science with specialization in ML/AI.
- 3–5 years of applied ML/research experience, or equivalent depth from an advanced degree in a quantitative field.
- In-depth understanding of the scientific method: ability to design experiments, form hypotheses, and both ask and answer ambiguous questions independently.
- Applied experience with modern ML/AI techniques: retrieval-augmented generation and knowledge-graph retrieval, model fine-tuning, and agent frameworks.
- Experience designing evaluation methods and benchmarks for AI/ML systems, with the statistical rigor to know when a result is real versus noise.
- Strong programming fundamentals and Python fluency, sufficient to build and iterate.
- Working familiarity of AI coding agents (Claude Code, Cursor, Codex, Antigravity, or similar).
- Demonstrated ability to scope and solve ambiguous technical problems independently.
Nice to have
- Advanced degree in physics, electrical engineering, signal processing, or a related scientific domain.
- Semiconductor industry familiarity, particularly in semiconductor testing, ATE, or EDA tools.
- Knowledge of C++ for performance-critical or hardware-adjacent work.
- Exposure to GPU/server hardware and at least one LLM inference or fine-tuning runtime (e.g., vLLM, Hugging Face Trainer/PEFT).
Skills: Applied AI and Machine Learning, models, algorithms, agent systems, RAG/knowledge-retrieval pipelines, semiconductor testing, ATE, or EDA tools
This role has been open 3 days — well below the 51-day median for Software Engineering Semiconductor roles.
Software Engineering Semiconductor · AI ML Hardware
|
Open roles in category
158
|
Median days open
51 d
|
Median salary
$192k
|
See the full market breakdown ▾Category comparison, skills in demand, and who else is hiring
| Metric | Cohu | All employers we track in this specialty (158 roles · 42 employers) |
|---|---|---|
| Open roles in this specialty | 1 | 158 |
| Open roles in the wider Software, Firmware & Systems family | 12 | 6025 · 146 employers |
| Median days open | 3 d | 51 d (−48 d vs this employer) |
| Median salary (USD postings) | — | $192k |
Skills observed across this category: Applied AI and Machine Learning, models, algorithms, agent systems, RAG/knowledge-retrieval pipelines, semiconductor testing, ATE, or EDA tools
Who's hiring in this category
- Micron Technology · 28 open roles · median 30 d
- NVIDIA · 24 open roles · median 185 d
- Qualcomm · 23 open roles · median 185 d
- Infineon Technologies · 10 open roles · median 39 d
- AMD · 9 open roles · median 74 d
- Applied Materials · 4 open roles · median 81 d
How we counted: 158 open Software Engineering Semiconductor (AI ML Hardware) roles from 42 employers tracked in the SemiconductorJobs index, counted 11 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.