AI/ML Algorithm Engineer (Physics-Driven)

Applied Materials; Santa Clara (CA); On-site; USD 161,000 - 221,000; Full time

Job summary

Applied Materials is seeking an Algorithm Developer to join Rocket, a team advancing AI/ML, theoretical physics, and systems engineering for semiconductor manufacturing. You will develop automated systems that ingest thousands of sensors, uncover physics-based relationships, and build predictive and control models using first-principles physics with machine learning.

The role requires deep expertise in physics, computation, and software with a focus on delivering production-ready code and

Qualifications

• PhD in a quantitative discipline or a Master’s with 2+ years’ experience.
• Deep expertise in theoretical physics, applied math, computational science, or simulation-driven engineering.
• Experience with modern machine learning techniques.
• Strong software engineering capable of producing production-ready code.
• Ability to work across interdisciplinary teams and solve complex problems.

Responsibilities

• Design scalable data pipelines for high-volume sensor data.
• Model underlying physical relationships governing process behavior.
• Develop predictive and control algorithms combining physics and ML.
• Build maintainable software modules integrated with manufacturing tools.
• Collaborate across physics, engineering, software, and data science teams.
• Develop ML surrogates or reduced-order models from physics simulations.
• Optimize accuracy vs speed of algorithm implementations.
• Analyze large sensor/metrology data to improve models.
• Implement models for user-facing control systems or dashboards.
• Maintain a clean, extensible codebase.

Skills

Theoretical physics

Applied mathematics

Computational science

Machine learning

Software engineering

Data analysis

Education

PhD in Physics

Master's degree + 2 years experience

Tools

Python

C++

ML frameworks

Job description

Applied Materials is seeking an Algorithm Developer to join Rocket, a team advancing AI/ML, theoretical physics, and systems engineering for semiconductor manufacturing. You will develop automated systems that ingest thousands of sensors, uncover physics-based relationships, and build predictive and control models using first-principles physics with machine learning.

The role requires deep expertise in physics, computation, and software with a focus on delivering production-ready code and