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Hardware Research Scientist Jobs (NOW HIRING)

SEMRON is redefining what's possible in AI hardware, and they are seeking an ML Research Scientist to design algorithms and quantization schemes for efficient inference on their analog in-memory ...

Join Teledyne Scientific & Imaging as a Research Scientist ! Are you ready to launch your career to ... Support hardware/software integration, testing, and evaluation of applied technologies * Contribute ...

Join Teledyne Scientific & Imaging as a Research Scientist ! Are you ready to launch your career to ... Support hardware/software integration, testing, and evaluation of applied technologies * Contribute ...

We are looking for a Research Scientist who can work within the Data Assimilation team to ... Who we are Aeolus builds hardware and software to reduce weather-related risk. We're focused on ...

We are looking for a Research Scientist who can work within the Data Assimilation team to ... Who we are Aeolus builds hardware and software to reduce weather-related risk. We're focused on ...

Senior Research Scientist US

Washington, DC · On-site

$111K - $142K/yr

The company's unique ability to offer both hardware and software solutions, along with its ... The Senior Research Scientist will play a key role in advancing Quandela's research agenda ...

Senior Research Scientist US

Washington, DC · On-site

$111K - $142K/yr

The company's unique ability to offer both hardware and software solutions, along with its ... The Senior Research Scientist will play a key role in advancing Quandela's research agenda ...

Senior Research Scientist US

Washington, DC · On-site

$111K - $142K/yr

The company's unique ability to offer both hardware and software solutions, along with its ... The Senior Research Scientist will play a key role in advancing Quandela's research agenda ...

Senior Research Scientist US

Washington, DC · On-site

$111K - $142K/yr

The company's unique ability to offer both hardware and software solutions, along with its ... The Senior Research Scientist will play a key role in advancing Quandela's research agenda ...

$95K - $175K/yr

SRS seeks a Research Scientist - Cryptography with an interest in formal methods to develop ... Familiarity with computer architecture, including topics such as tagged architectures, hardware ...

Showing results 21-40

Hardware Research Scientist information

See salary details

$90.5K

$132.5K

$143.5K

How much do hardware research scientist jobs pay per year?

As of Sep 14, 2026, the average yearly pay for hardware research scientist in the United States is $132,455.00, according to ZipRecruiter salary data. Most workers in this role earn between $116,000.00 and $143,000.00 per year, depending on experience, location, and employer.

What is a hardware research scientist?

Hardware Research Scientists are professionals who design, develop, and test new computer hardware components and systems. Their work involves conducting experiments, analyzing data, and innovating to improve the performance, efficiency, and reliability of hardware such as processors, memory devices, and sensors. They often collaborate with engineers and software developers to integrate hardware solutions into products. Hardware Research Scientists are typically employed by technology companies, research institutions, or universities, and usually hold advanced degrees in electrical engineering, computer engineering, or related fields.

What are the main challenges hardware research scientists face when transitioning their innovations from the lab to commercial products?

Hardware Research Scientists often encounter challenges in bridging the gap between prototype development and large-scale manufacturing. Issues such as ensuring reliability, meeting cost constraints, and adhering to industry standards require close collaboration with engineering and production teams. Additionally, translating cutting-edge research into scalable, manufacturable designs involves navigating technical feasibility, resource limitations, and iterative testing. Effective communication and adaptability are essential for overcoming these hurdles and achieving successful product launches.

What are the key skills and qualifications needed to thrive as a hardware research scientist, and why are they important?

To thrive as a Hardware Research Scientist, you need a strong background in electrical or computer engineering, physics, or a related field, typically supported by an advanced degree (MS or PhD). Familiarity with simulation software (such as MATLAB or SPICE), laboratory instrumentation, and hardware design tools like CAD is crucial. Analytical thinking, creativity, and effective communication are important soft skills for problem-solving and collaborating with multidisciplinary teams. These competencies enable the development of innovative hardware solutions and ensure successful advancement of technology in research environments.

What is the difference between Hardware Research Scientist vs Hardware Design Engineer?

AspectHardware Research ScientistHardware Design Engineer
Primary FocusDeveloping new hardware concepts and exploring innovative technologiesDesigning, testing, and implementing hardware components and systems
Work EnvironmentResearch labs, R&D departments, academic settingsProduct development teams, manufacturing facilities
Required CredentialsBachelor's/Master's/PhD in Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering, or related fieldsBachelor's/Master's in Electrical Engineering or related fields
Industry UsageResearch institutions, tech companies, academiaConsumer electronics, telecommunications, hardware manufacturing

While both roles involve working with hardware, a Hardware Research Scientist focuses on innovating and exploring new hardware technologies, often in research settings. In contrast, a Hardware Design Engineer concentrates on designing and developing hardware products for commercial use. Understanding these differences helps clarify career paths and employer expectations in the hardware industry.

What are popular job titles related to Hardware Research Scientist jobs?

For Hardware Research Scientist jobs, the most frequently searched job titles are:

Infographic showing various Hardware Research Scientist job openings in the United States as of September 2026, with employment types broken down into 1% Internship, 1% As Needed, 87% Full Time, 10% Part Time, and 1% Contract. Highlights an 76% Physical, 4% Hybrid, and 20% Remote job distribution, with an average salary of $132,455 per year, or $63.7 per hour.

Senior Research Scientist, Cloud AI Research

Mountain View, CA • On-site

Google Inc.
Software Development • 10K+ employees

$115K - $147K/yr

Other

Posted 6 days ago


Google rating

8.8

Company rating: 8.8 out of 10

Based on 103 frontline employees who took The Breakroom Quiz


Job description

Senior Research Scientist, Cloud AI Research

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Google Mountain View, CA, USA

Mid

Experience driving progress, solving problems, and mentoring more junior team members; deeper expertise and applied knowledge within relevant area.

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  • PhD in Computer Science, a related field, or equivalent practical experience.
  • 2 years of Experience developing autonomous agents, multi-agent workflows, or agentic frameworks (e.g., AutoGen, CrewAI, LangGraph, tool-use/function-calling, or multi-agent RL).
  • Experience designing, pre-training, fine-tuning, or evaluating Large Language Models (LLMs) and multimodal foundation models.
  • Two or more first-author scientific publication submission(s) on agents in machine learning and natural language processing for conferences, journals, or public repositories (e.g., NeurIPS, ICML, ICLR, ACL, EMNLP).
Preferred qualifications:
  • Experience building evaluation benchmarks, test harnesses, or simulation environments for complex reasoning, code generation, or multimodal tasks.
  • Experience in RL, reward modeling, and human/AI preference alignment techniques (e.g., RLHF, RLAIF, DPO).
  • Experience developing test-time/inference-time compute scaling methods, search-guided decoding, or planning algorithms.
  • Experience developing safe and reliable AI systems, including adversarial robustness, hallucination mitigation, alignment guardrails, model interpretability.
About the job

As an organization, Google maintains a portfolio of research projects driven by fundamental research, new product innovation, product contribution and infrastructure goals, while providing individuals and teams the freedom to emphasize specific types of work. As a Research Scientist, you’ll setup large-scale tests and deploy promising ideas quickly and broadly, managing deadlines and deliverables while applying the latest theories to develop new and improved products, processes, or technologies. From creating experiments and prototyping implementations to designing new architectures, our research scientists work on real-world problems that span the breadth of computer science, such as machine (and deep) learning, data mining, natural language processing, hardware and software performance analysis, improving compilers for mobile platforms, as well as core search and much more.

As a Research Scientist, you’ll also actively contribute to the wider research community by sharing and publishing your findings, with ideas inspired by internal projects as well as from collaborations with research programs at partner universities and technical institutes all over the world.

The Google Cloud AI Research team addresses AI challenges motivated by Google Cloud’s mission of bringing AI to tech, healthcare, finance, retail and many other industries. We work on a range of unique problems focused on research topics that maximize scientific and real-world impact, aiming to push the state-of-the-art in AI and share findings with the broader research community. We also collaborate with product teams to bring innovations to real-world impact that benefits our customers.

Individual pay is determined by factors including job-related skills, experience, and relevant education or training.

About the job

As an organization, Google maintains a portfolio of research projects driven by fundamental research, new product innovation, product contribution and infrastructure goals, while providing individuals and teams the freedom to emphasize specific types of work. As a Research Scientist, you’ll setup large-scale tests and deploy promising ideas quickly and broadly, managing deadlines and deliverables while applying the latest theories to develop new and improved products, processes, or technologies. From creating experiments and prototyping implementations to designing new architectures, our research scientists work on real-world problems that span the breadth of computer science, such as machine (and deep) learning, data mining, natural language processing, hardware and software performance analysis, improving compilers for mobile platforms, as well as core search and much more.

As a Research Scientist, you’ll also actively contribute to the wider research community by sharing and publishing your findings, with ideas inspired by internal projects as well as from collaborations with research programs at partner universities and technical institutes all over the world.

The Google Cloud AI Research team addresses AI challenges motivated by Google Cloud’s mission of bringing AI to tech, healthcare, finance, retail and many other industries. We work on a range of unique problems focused on research topics that maximize scientific and real-world impact, aiming to push the state-of-the-art in AI and share findings with the broader research community. We also collaborate with product teams to bring innovations to real-world impact that benefits our customers.

US: $174000 - $252000 (USD) + 15% bonus target + equity + benefits

Learn more about benefits at Google .

  • Conduct foundational agentic research, develop state-of-the-art agent architectures, planning frameworks, and self-improving foundation models to advance autonomous AI systems.
  • Solve complex business challenges, design and deliver high-impact vertical agents across core domains (e.g., infrastructure, forecasting, and optimization) targeting operational efficiencies.
  • Build generalizable horizontal agents to accelerate researcher velocity and automate end-to-end business value generation across Google.
  • Partner with product and engineering teams to translate novel agentic prototypes into scalable enterprise solutions and products.
  • Advance the scientific community, publish breakthroughs at the ML conferences, establish benchmarks, and collaborate across Google.

Google is proud to be an equal opportunity and affirmative action employer. We are committed to building a workforce that is representative of the users we serve, creating a culture of belonging, and providing an equal employment opportunity regardless of race, creed, color, religion, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity/expression, national origin, disability, age, genetic information, veteran status, marital status, pregnancy or related condition (including breastfeeding), expecting or parents-to-be, criminal histories consistent with legal requirements, or any other basis protected by law. See also Google's EEO Policy , Know your rights: workplace discrimination is illegal , Belonging at Google , and How we hire .

Google is a global company and, in order to facilitate efficient collaboration and communication globally, English proficiency is a requirement for all roles unless stated otherwise in the job posting.

To all recruitment agencies: Google does not accept agency resumes. Please do not forward resumes to our jobs alias, Google employees, or any other organization location. Google is not responsible for any fees related to unsolicited resumes.

Equity is granted exclusively and discretionarily by Alphabet Inc. on the basis of an agreement concluded between you and Alphabet Inc. Alphabet Inc. is your sole contractual partner with respect to equity grants. GSU grants are not guaranteed, are discretionary, are subject to approval by the Alphabet Inc. board of directors or its delegate, the terms of the relevant Alphabet Inc. stock plan, and your grant agreement. They have no impact on statutory payments. Current or past grants do not confer an acquired right.

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