Research Engineer - New Grad (2027)
Applied Intuition is hiring a Research Engineer - New Grad (2027) in Sunnyvale, United States. It pays $140k-$200k a year and Level rates it ; you can apply on Applied Intuition.
Level's read on this job
- Builds AI ●●●● is how Level rates this role: the job is building AI systems.
- The posting mentions PyTorch, computer vision and research among its tools and skills.
- Level classes it as a junior role.
- Applied Intuition has 327 other open roles on Level.
AI in this role
Develop cutting-edge technology and end-to-end solutions for autonomous driving and physical AI as a research engineer.
Applied Intuition, Inc. is powering the future of physical AI. Founded in 2017 and now valued at $15 billion, the Silicon Valley company is creating the digital infrastructure needed to bring intelligence to every moving machine on the planet. Applied Intuition services the automotive, defense, trucking, construction, mining and agriculture industries in three core areas: tools and infrastructure, operating systems, and autonomy. Eighteen of the top 20 global automakers, as well as the United States military and its allies, trust the company’s solutions to deliver physical intelligence. Applied Intuition is headquartered in Sunnyvale, California, with offices in Washington, D.C.; San Diego; Ft. Walton Beach, Florida; Ann Arbor, Michigan; London; Stuttgart; Munich; Stockholm; Bangalore; Seoul; and Tokyo. Learn more at applied.co.
We are an in-office company, and our expectation is that full-time employees primarily work from their Applied Intuition office 5 days a week. However, we also recognize the importance of flexibility and trust our employees to manage their schedules responsibly. This may include occasional remote work, starting the day with morning meetings from home before heading to the office, or leaving earlier when needed to accommodate family commitments. This in-office expectation does not apply to contractor positions
About the role and team
We are looking for passionate early-career Research Engineers to join the Research Group at Applied Intuition. The mission of the group is to create cutting-edge technology enabling next-generation physical AI, with emphasis on the two most challenging applications reshaping our everyday life: end-to-end autonomous driving and robotic generalist. We have a group composed of leading experts from top institutions and companies, recognized for their exceptional academic and industry contributions, including eight Best Paper awards at premier conferences and journals such as CVPR and ICRA. Learn more at appliedintuition.com/research.
Supported by industry-leading tools and infra, researchers can access millions of miles of data from large fleets, and deploy methods they develop into various autonomous and robotic systems including self-driving cars/trucks, autonomous mining/construction machines, humanoid robots, and dexterous hands. In addition to your research contributions, you will contribute to and learn from best practices in the autonomy and robotics industries within our fast-paced and customer-focused culture. Improvements deployed to our system immediately help our customers with their programs and deliver value to our business.
This role is designed for recent PhD or MS graduates ready to translate strong academic research into shipped autonomy systems.
At Applied Intuition, you will:
Collaborate with our ADAS stack engineering team to test and deploy end-to-end algorithms for mass production vehicles
Collaborate with our simulation team to deploy data-driven generation algorithms for highly efficient and automated tools
Conduct research on architecture design, robustness, safety, and language modality incorporation for our differentiable stack
Work closely with Research Scientists and interns on high-quality research publications to submit to top-tier conferences
We’re looking for someone who has:
Hands-on experience in at least one of the following fields:
World-action foundation model, video/Gaussian generation, diffusion policy, multi-modal robot learning
VLA post-training, reinforcement learning
Physics-aware reconstruction, deformable simulation
MSc or PhD in machine learning and computer vision with autonomy and robotics applications or closely related field, graduating by December 2026 or Summer 2027
Passion for next-generation, scalable autonomy and robotics for real-world systems
Strong engineering and research skills and the ability to work both independently and collaboratively on projects
Technical experience in: Python, Pytorch, computer vision, robotics systems, and distributed machine learning model training
1+ year of experience in any field, or equivalent combination of education and experience
Nice to have:
Industry experience on relevant topics (self-driving application preferred)
Passion for building and shipping customer-focused software frameworks or tools
Don’t meet every single requirement? If you’re excited about this role but your past experience doesn’t align perfectly with every qualification in the job description, we encourage you to apply anyway. You may be just the right candidate for this or other roles.
Applied Intuition is an equal opportunity employer and federal contractor or subcontractor. Consequently, the parties agree that, as applicable, they will abide by the requirements of 41 CFR 60-1.4(a), 41 CFR 60-300.5(a) and 41 CFR 60-741.5(a) and that these laws are incorporated herein by reference. These regulations prohibit discrimination against qualified individuals based on their status as protected veterans or individuals with disabilities, and prohibit discrimination against all individuals based on their race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or national origin. These regulations require that covered prime contractors and subcontractors take affirmative action to employ and advance in employment individuals without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, protected veteran status or disability. The parties also agree that, as applicable, they will abide by the requirements of Executive Order 13496 (29 CFR Part 471, Appendix A to Subpart A), relating to the notice of employee rights under federal labor laws.
FOR US-BASED ROLES: Applied Intuition is committed to providing an accessible and inclusive application and interview experience to applicants who are disabled veterans and other applicants with disabilities or medical conditions. Reasonable accommodations are available, requesting an accommodation will not affect your candidacy in any way, and you are not required to disclose the nature of your disability or medical condition in order to make a request. If you require an accommodation please contact careers@applied.co. We will work with you!
How we rate this
Research Engineer - New Grad (2027) at Applied Intuition rates 90 out of 100 for how much of the daily work is AI. That makes it Builds AI (AI Level 4 of 4). The level is about AI in the job, not seniority.
Builds AI. The job is building AI systems.
- ●●●● Builds AI80 to 100
- ●●●○ Works on AI60 to 79
- ●●○○ Uses AI40 to 59
- ●○○○ Little AI0 to 39
Levels come from how often the tools, models and workflows of the role are named in the posting itself. Read the description and count the AI tools, models and workflows it names.
Prepare for this job
Built from this posting and from similar jobs on Level.
Skills and AI tools this role asks for
Questions you could be asked
- Walk me through a computer vision problem you solved, from raw data to a deployed model.
- Tell me about a project where research was part of your work. What did you do?
- Tell me about a project where autonomous driving was part of your work. What did you do?
- Tell me about a project where robotics was part of your work. What did you do?
- Walk me through how you've used PyTorch in your day-to-day work.
Adapt your resume
- List these exact terms on your resume: Computer vision, Research, Autonomous Driving, Robotics, and PyTorch. An applicant tracking system matches the wording, not the idea.
- Attach one line of real, concrete experience to at least one of them. A tool named with nothing behind it rarely survives a human read.
- Lead with what you built, trained or shipped. This role is judged on the AI system itself, not the tools around it.
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