Research Scientist, ML H-W/S-W Codesign

Meta; Sunnyvale (CA); On-site; USD 154,000 - 217,000; Full time

Job summary

Reality Labs at Meta seeks a Research Scientist to invent and productize ML–HW co-design techniques for on‑device AI in VR/AR devices. You will work across algorithms, hardware architecture, and software to push performance and energy efficiency on custom accelerators.

Collaborate with researchers, publish results, contribute to patents, and present findings at leading conferences, with impact across Meta's AR/VR platforms and wearables.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's or PhD in a relevant technical field
• Experience with AI algorithms, ML hardware acceleration, or AI hardware co-design is preferred
• Strong programming in C/C++ or Python and system-level thinking

Responsibilities

• Identify and solve multi‑discipline ML acceleration problems involving algorithms, network design, hardware architecture, multimodal AI and AR/VR use cases
• Work across hardware and software to solve co‑design problems with other researchers
• Codesign and invent ML accelerator and system architecture solutions and integrate algorithms and software
• Develop model compression and scalability techniques
• Optimize models on hardware accelerators for real-time latency and power targets
• Influence partners through data‑driven analysis and clear trade‑offs
• Define use cases and develop benchmarks to evaluate approaches
• Attend conferences, interpret papers, and stay updated with research advancements
• Contribute to patents and publications

Job description

Summary

Reality Labs (RL) focuses on delivering Meta's vision through Virtual Reality (VR), Augmented Reality (AR) and Wearable AI Devices. The compute performance and power efficiency requirements of our AI devices require custom silicon. Reality Labs Silicon team is advancing research and development in computer vision, machine learning, mixed reality, graphics, displays, sensors, and new ways to map the human body. Our chips will unlock personalized on-device AI capabilities and blend virtual, physical worlds on wearable devices. We believe the only way to achieve our goals is to look at the entire stack, from transistors, through architecture, firmware, and algorithms. Meta's Research & Development teams are looking for a Research Scientist who will invent and productize advanced AI model–hardware codesign techniques. Working at the intersection of AI models, hardware acceleration, and software systems, you will tackle complex, high-impact challenges in Reality Labs, developing novel approaches to compute‑ and power‑efficient training and on‑device inference of vision and language models for AR, VR, and edge devices. This role is available in multiple locations.

Required Skills

Research Scientist, ML H‑W/S‑W Codesign Responsibilities:

1. Identify and solve multi‑discipline ML acceleration problems involving algorithms, network design, hardware architecture, multimodal AI and AR/VR use cases. These may involve novel approaches not yet established in the industry.
2. Work across hardware and software, to solve co‑design problems with other Research scientists working in this area.
3. Codesign and invent novel ML accelerator and system architecture solutions, and facilitate the integration of algorithms and software to utilize these enhancements.
4. Develop state‑of‑the‑art model compression and scalability techniques using numerics, pruning, distillation etc.
5. Optimize models on hardware accelerators to achieve target performance given various real‑time latency and power constraints.
6. Influence partners to adopt recommended solutions through data‑driven analysis and clear communication of trade‑offs.
7. Define use cases, and develop methodology & benchmarks to evaluate different approaches.
8. Apply in‑depth knowledge of how the ML acceleration interacts with the other systems around it.
9. Attend conferences, interpret papers, and stay updated with latest research advancements in the field of ML acceleration.
10. Contribute to patents and/or publications in peer‑reviewed conferences and journals.

Minimum Qualifications

1. Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, relevant technical field, or equivalent practical experience.
2. PhD in Electrical Engineering, Computer Science, or relevant technical field, or equivalent practical experience.
3. Experience developing AI‑System infrastructure, AI algorithms or AI hardware acceleration in C/C++ or Python.

Preferred Qualifications

1. Experience adhering to and implementing responsible, ethical AI practices (e.g., risk assessment, bias mitigation, quality and accuracy reviews).
2. Experience working and communicating cross‑functionally in a team environment.
3. Demonstrated research and engineering experience via an internship, work experience, coding competitions, or widely used contributions in open source repositories (e.g., GitHub).
4. Experience with PyTorch, TensorFlow or similar machine learning toolsets.
5. Experience or knowledge of training/inference of large‑scale AI models – CV and/or LLMs.
6. Experience or knowledge of architecting ML hardware accelerators and systems.
7. Experience evaluating alternative system or algorithm designs by analyzing trade‑offs in performance, power, and latency to recommend a solution.
8. Demonstrated ability to integrate AI tools to optimize/redesign workflows and drive measurable impact (e.g., efficiency gains, quality improvements).
9. Proven track record of achieving significant results as demonstrated by grants, fellowships, patents, and publications at leading workshops, journals or conferences such as ICLR, NeurIPS, CVPR, ACL, ICML, MLSys, ISCA, MICRO, DAC, ASPLOS, etc.
10. Demonstrated ongoing AI skill development (e.g., prompt/context engineering, agent orchestration) and staying current with emerging AI technologies.
11. Experience or knowledge of on‑device algorithm development including hardware‑aware ML models and/or optimizing ML compilers for efficient deployment on AI accelerators.

Public Compensation

$154,000/year to $217,000/year + bonus + equity + benefits

Industry

Internet

Equal Opportunity

Meta is proud to be an Equal Employment Opportunity and Affirmative Action employer. We do not discriminate based upon race, religion, color, national origin, sex (including pregnancy, childbirth, or related medical conditions), sexual orientation, gender, gender identity, gender expression, transgender status, sexual stereotypes, age, status as a protected veteran, status as an individual with a disability, or other applicable legally protected characteristics. We also consider qualified applicants with criminal histories, consistent with applicable federal, state and local law. Meta participates in the E‑Verify program in certain locations, as required by law. Please note that Meta may leverage artificial intelligence and machine learning technologies in connection with applications for employment.

Meta is committed to providing reasonable accommodations for candidates with disabilities in our recruiting process. If you need any assistance or accommodations due to a disability, please let us know at accommodations‑[e-mail].