AI Research Scientist, Hardware AI Systems

AMD; Santa Clara (CA); On-site; USD 180,000 - 260,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

AMD benefits at a glance

Job summary

AMD in Santa Clara seeks a Lead AI Research Scientist, Hardware AI Systems to develop AI systems that generalize across hardware contexts, RTL, verification, PD and toolchains. You will partner with methodology and silicon teams to turn one-off wins into reusable models, benchmarks, and transfer protocols that compound across AMD’s roadmap.

PhD strongly preferred; deep ML expertise, transfer learning, meta-learning, and RL experience are essential.

Qualifications

• 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; maintain internal technical standards for “generalization claims” backed by evidence.

Responsibilities

• Lead AI research initiatives spanning transfer learning, meta-learning, and RL for hardware AI systems.
• Define evaluation benchmarks, datasets, and translation protocols to reusable models across AMD programs.
• Collaborate with hardware teams to integrate ML methods into RTL, verification, and PD workflows.
• Mentor junior scientists and contribute to AMD technical standards and public research outputs.

Skills

Transfer learning

Meta-learning

Intelligent agents

Reinforcement learning

Machine learning research

LLM tooling

Education

PhD in Computer Science or Machine Learning

Tools

LLM tool use

Job description

WHAT YOU DO AT AMD CHANGES EVERYTHING

At AMD, our mission is to build great products that accelerate next-generation computing experiences—from AI and data centers, to PCs, gaming and embedded systems. Grounded in a culture of innovation and collaboration, we believe real progress comes from bold ideas, human ingenuity and a shared passion to create something extraordinary. When you join AMD, you’ll discover the real differentiator is our culture. We push the limits of innovation to solve the world’s most important challenges—striving for execution excellence, while being direct, humble, collaborative, and inclusive of diverse perspectives. Join us as we shape the future of AI and beyond.

Together, we advance your career.

The Role

Lead AI Research Scientist, Hardware AI Systems

We are hiring you to develop AI systems that generalize across hardware engineering contexts, different SoC programs, toolchains, process nodes, and teams, without bespoke retraining for every program. You will work on metareasoning (when to call which tool or simulator), representation learning across flows (RTL, verification, physical design), and learning under high- or mixed-latency rewards typical of silicon signoff. You partner with methodology and silicon teams to turn one-off wins into reusable models, benchmarks, and transfer protocols that compound across AMD’s roadmap.

The Person

You think in distribution shift, domain adaptation, and structured priors—not only bigger models. You respect domain experts and treat their time and signoff criteria as first-class constraints in problem formulation.

Key Responsibilities

• 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; maintain internal technical standards for “generalization claims” backed by evidence

Preferred Experience

• Deep technical expertise and proven research experience in machine learning (ML), with emphasis on transfer learning, meta-learning, intelligent agents, and long-horizon reinforcement learning (RL).
• Exposure to hardware development (RTL, verification, PD, or bring-up) or willingness to ramp with embedded experts
• Experience with Large Language Models (LLM) tool use, planning, or hierarchical control in real toolchains

Academic Credentials

• PhD in Computer Science, Machine Learning, or related field strongly preferred.

Benefits

Benefits offered are described: AMD benefits at a glance.

AMD does not accept unsolicited resumes from headhunters, recruitment agencies, or fee-based recruitment services. AMD and its subsidiaries are equal opportunity, inclusive employers and will consider all applicants without regard to age, ancestry, color, marital status, medical condition, mental or physical disability, national origin, race, religion, political and/or third-party affiliation, sex, pregnancy, sexual orientation, gender identity, military or veteran status, or any other characteristic protected by law. We encourage applications from all qualified candidates and will accommodate applicants’ needs under the respective laws throughout all stages of the recruitment and selection process.

AMD may use Artificial Intelligence to help screen, assess or select applicants for this position. AMD’s “Responsible AI Policy” is available here.

This posting is for an existing vacancy.