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About This Role
About Us
Georgia Tech prides itself on its technological resources, collaborations, high-quality student body, and its commitment to building an outstanding and diverse community of learning, discovery, and creation. We strongly encourage applicants whose values align with our institutional values, as outlined in our strategic plan. These values include academic excellence, diversity of thought and experience, inquiry and innovation, collaboration and community, and ethical behavior and stewardship. Georgia Tech has policies to promote a healthy work-life balance and is aware that attracting faculty may require meeting the needs of two careers.
About Georgia Tech
Georgia Tech is a top-ranked public research university situated in the heart of Atlanta, a diverse and vibrant city with numerous economic and cultural strengths. The Institute serves more than 45,000 students through top-ranked undergraduate, graduate, and executive programs in engineering, computing, science, business, design, and liberal arts. Georgia Tech's faculty attracted more than $1.4 billion in research awards this past year in fields ranging from biomedical technology to artificial intelligence, energy, sustainability, semiconductors, neuroscience, and national security. Georgia Tech ranks among the nation's top 20 universities for research and development spending and No. 1 among institutions without a medical school.
Georgia Tech's Mission and Values
Georgia Tech's mission is to develop leaders who advance technology and improve the human condition. The Institute has nine key values that are foundational to everything we do:
- Students are our top priority.
- We strive for excellence.
- We thrive on diversity.
- We celebrate collaboration.
- We champion innovation.
- We safeguard freedom of inquiry and expression.
- We nurture the wellbeing of our community.
- We act ethically.
- We are responsible stewards.
Over the next decade, Georgia Tech will become an example of inclusive innovation, a leading technological research university of unmatched scale, relentlessly committed to serving the public good; breaking new ground in addressing the biggest local, national, and global challenges and opportunities of our time; making technology broadly accessible; and developing exceptional, principled leaders from all backgrounds ready to produce novel ideas and create solutions with real human impact.
Location
Atlanta, GA
Department Information
About Tech AI at the Georgia Institute of Technology
At Georgia Tech, AI advances across many disciplines, with dozens of campus centers, institutes, and NSF AI Institutes pushing the field forward. Tech AI serves as the Institute's mission-ready AI accelerator and solutions engineering arm, uniting this ecosystem around one purpose: turning world-class AI research into deployed, real-world systems for industry, government, and society.
Operating under the Office of the Executive Vice President for Research (EVPR), Tech AI serves as Georgia Tech¿s front door for external AI engagement. It provides the translation, engineering, business development, workforce development, and partnership layer that connects the Institute's AI research strengths to the organizations that need them. Under the emerging umbrella-branding concept, Georgia Tech AI represents the broader portfolio of research, education, and AI strategy, while Tech AI serves as the delivery engine that builds and operationalizes solutions.
Rather than functioning as another research center, Tech AI provides a path to market and serves as a delivery partner. Through a disciplined Technology Readiness Level (TRL) acceleration model, it moves innovations from laboratory concept through validation, pilot deployment, and operational testing to commercialized, mission-ready outcomes. This work mobilizes faculty, students, research software engineers, GTRI, and leading infrastructure, such as the $20M Nexus national AI supercomputer.
As an AI-powered university, Georgia Tech is embracing AI across the Institute by incorporating it into academic programs and research to assist and amplify human intelligence in all areas of work. Tech AI advances this vision by delivering trustworthy, human-centered, mission-ready systems across priority sectors, including energy and grid optimization, supply chain and logistics, advanced manufacturing, healthcare and life sciences, national security, and enterprise AI. This reflects Georgia Tech's philosophy of AI as pragmatic, collaborative, and applied.
Tech AI's vision is to be the go-to AI solutions provider that turns discovery into deployed impact by advancing AI through applied research, robust engineering, responsible deployment, industry and government partnership, and next-generation education to build a sustainable future.
Job Summary
Tech AI is seeking a Research Engineer (Open Rank) to join the team. We are expanding our team with Research Software Engineers who are excited about working in a highly dynamic, research-oriented development environment.
Candidates should possess:
Desire to participate in an exceptional team that pushes the boundaries of science and software.
Desire to learn, grow, coach, and be coached.
Ability to learn new concepts across different application domains.
Ability to lead and contribute with a clear understanding of your capabilities and areas for growth.
Ability to work in a positive, open, and team-oriented way.
Entrepreneurial drive and ability to thrive in open-ended environments.
Ability to see beyond the AI hype while still recognizing its utility.
Responsibilities
Individuals on the team will work on a variety of different ground-breaking research projects. Some projects may require deep engagement (potentially leading to co-authorship on scientific publications) while others may resemble a more casual consulting engagement. Some projects will require solutions developed from the ground up, and others may involve refactoring existing solutions to conform to industry standards. Individuals who are adaptable, curious, and invested in continuous growth will do well on this team and in this environment.
Most often engages with all functionalities within a single project
Exemplify Georgia Tech's Core Values
Perform software development, debugging, modification, enhancement, support, and documentation
Design, test, and develop computer software to meet established requirements
Author technical reports, presentations, white papers, and competitive proposals
Participate in mentoring activities as a mentor and mentee
Lead discussions with stakeholders to better understand the needs of our partners
Work towards mastery of techniques, tools, and methodologies
Stay abreast of new techniques, tools and methodologies
Automate repetitive and/or critical processes
Eliminate overhead and reduce waste
Promote engineering best practices
Apply expertise to develop software architectures and provide senior-level support of high-security, sensitive, or classified systems
Provide technical leadership to development teams
Convert a Principal Investigator's wants and needs into a product definition with measurable goals and actionable system requirements
Serve as a Principal Investigator or as a resource and Subject Matter Expert (SME) for software engineering tools and technologies
Other duties as assigned
Required Qualifications
This position opportunity is an open rank announcement. Final job offer will be dependent on candidate qualifications in alignment with Research Faculty Georgia Tech Faculty Handbook (https://www.policylibrary.gatech.edu/faculty-handbook/3.2.1-research-faculty-hiring-and-promotion-guidelines)
Research Engineer I
Bachelor's degree
Research Engineer II
Bachelor's degree with three (3) years or relevant full-time experience after completion of that degree, or
Five (5) years of relevant full-time experience after completion of Bachelor's degree or
A Doctoral degree.
Senior Research Engineer
Master's degree with seven (7) years of relevant full-time experience after completion of that degree, or
Master's degree with nine (9) years of relevant full-time experience after completion of a Bachelor's degree, or
Doctoral degree with four (4) years of relevant full-time experience after completion of a Bachelor's degree
Principal Research Engineer
Master's degree with Eleven (11) years of relevant full-time experience after completion of that degree, or
Doctoral degree with Seven (7) years of relevant full-time experience after completion of a Bachelor's degree
Preferred Qualifications
Candidates for this position must have:
Experience with modern software engineering practices and tools (e.g., CI/CD, automated testing, cloud platforms, etc.).
Experience with at least one statically typed programming language (C++, C#, Go, Java, Rust, FORTRAN, etc.).
Experience with at least one dynamically typed programming language (Python, JavaScript, etc.).
Experience using agentic coding tools.
A diverse collection of personal Git repositories and/or software projects that demonstrate genuine passion for software engineering, continuous learning, and intellectual curiosity.
Ideal candidates for this position will also possess (or develop over time):
Experience working with open-source software and open-source communities.
An appreciation for the differences between industry and academia and how to leverage the strengths of both.
Ability to communicate effectively with individuals and audiences of varying technical ability.
In addition to the previous requirements, Senior-level candidates for this position must have:
A minimum of 6 years of industry experience as a software engineer.
A strong understanding of the software development lifecycle and how tools and best practices accelerate processes.
A commitment to quality and experience with automated testing.
Experience supporting software solutions in a customer-facing environment.
Experience cultivating a team culture that is transparent, safe, and committed to excellence.
Ideal Senior-level candidates for this role will also possess (or develop over time):
Experience with lean development concepts.
Experience with cloud platforms and concepts.
Experience with High-Performance Computing (HPC).
Contact Information
Please direct any inquiries to Stephen Rosner ( [email protected])
USG Core Values
The University System of Georgia is comprised of our 25 institutions of higher education and learning as well as the System Office. Our USG Statement of Core Values are Integrity, Excellence, Accountability, and Respect. These values serve as the foundation for all that we do as an organization, and each USG community member is responsible for demonstrating and upholding these standards. More details on the USG Statement of Core Values and Code of Conduct are available in USG Board Policy 8.2.18.1.2 and can be found on-line at https://www.usg.edu/policymanual/section8/C224/#p8.2.18_personnel_conduct.
Additionally, USG supports Freedom of Expression as stated in Board Policy 6.5 Freedom of Expression and Academic Freedom found on-line at https://www.usg.edu/policymanual/section6/C2653.
Equal Employment Opportunity
The Georgia Institute of Technology (Georgia Tech) is an Equal Employment Opportunity Employer. The Institute is committed to maintaining a fair and respectful environment for all. To that end, and in accordance with federal and state law, Board of Regents policy, and Institute policy, Georgia Tech provides equal opportunity to all faculty, staff, students, and all other members of the Georgia Tech community, including applicants for admission and/or employment, contractors, volunteers, and participants in institutional programs, activities, or services. Georgia Tech complies with all applicable laws and regulations governing equal opportunity in the workplace and in educational activities.
Equal opportunity and decisions based on merit are fundamental values of the University System of Georgia ("USG") and Georgia Tech. Georgia Tech prohibits discrimination, including discriminatory harassment, on the basis of an individual's race, ethnicity, ancestry, color, religion, sex (including pregnancy), national origin, age, disability, genetics, or veteran status in its programs, activities, employment, and admissions. Further, Georgia Tech prohibits citizenship status, immigration status, and national origin discrimination in hiring, firing, and recruitment, except where such restrictions are required in order to comply with law, regulation, executive order, or Attorney General directive, or where they are required by Federal, State, or local government contract.
Background Check
A successful candidate must be able to pass a background check. Please visit: https://usg.policystat.com/policy/19298143/latest
Other Information
In addition to receiving a competitive salary, generous benefits, and work/life programs, you will join the team as an employee of Georgia Tech, participate in Georgia Tech's world-renowned ecosystem, and be involved in exciting and highly visible research projects at the forefront of technology. You will also have the option to teach classes, serve as a guest lecturer, and mentor students in projects related to innovative software engineering topics.
Role Details
About This Role
Research Engineers bridge the gap between research and production. They implement papers, build experiment infrastructure, optimize training pipelines, and make research prototypes production-ready. They're the engineers who make research work at scale.
The role sits at a unique intersection. You need to understand the math well enough to implement novel architectures correctly, and you need the engineering chops to make them run efficiently on distributed systems. When a research scientist has a breakthrough idea, you're the person who turns it from a notebook prototype into a training pipeline that runs on 256 GPUs.
Across the 9,079 AI roles we're tracking, Research Engineer positions make up 2% of the market. At Georgia Tech, this role fits into their broader AI and engineering organization.
Research Engineer roles are growing as AI labs recognize that research velocity depends on engineering quality. The role is less competitive than Research Scientist (no PhD required), but the bar for engineering skill is very high. These roles are concentrated at major labs and well-funded startups.
What the Work Looks Like
A typical week involves: implementing a new attention mechanism from a recent paper, profiling and optimizing a training pipeline that's bottlenecked on data loading, building evaluation infrastructure for a new benchmark, debugging distributed training issues across a GPU cluster, and pair-programming with a research scientist on their latest experiment. The work is deeply technical.
Research Engineer roles are growing as AI labs recognize that research velocity depends on engineering quality. The role is less competitive than Research Scientist (no PhD required), but the bar for engineering skill is very high. These roles are concentrated at major labs and well-funded startups.
Skills Required
Strong software engineering fundamentals plus ML knowledge. Python, C++, and CUDA experience are common requirements. You'll need to read papers and turn ideas into working code. Distributed systems experience (especially distributed training) is highly valued. Performance optimization skills separate great candidates from good ones.
Experience with large-scale training infrastructure (FSDP, DeepSpeed, Megatron), GPU programming (CUDA, Triton), and the internals of ML frameworks (PyTorch internals, custom autograd functions) is what makes candidates stand out. The best research engineers can debug issues that span the full stack from GPU memory management to numerical precision to algorithmic correctness.
Strong postings mention the team's recent research, the infrastructure scale, and the specific technical challenges. They often list the research areas you'd support. Look for roles that emphasize both implementation quality and research understanding.
Compensation Benchmarks
Research Engineer roles pay a median of $252,000 based on 457 positions with disclosed compensation. Senior-level AI roles across all categories have a median of $229,300.
Across all AI roles, the market median is $213,000. Top-quartile compensation starts at $263,911. The 90th percentile reaches $318,400. For comparison, the highest-paying categories include AI Safety ($256,000) and AI Engineering Manager ($251,622). By seniority level: Entry: $111,000; Mid: $193,200; Senior: $229,300; Director: $272,300; VP: $235,830.
Georgia Tech AI Hiring
Georgia Tech has 6 open AI roles right now. They're hiring across Research Engineer, AI/ML Engineer, Research Scientist. Positions span Atlanta, GA, US, Smyrna, GA, US. Compensation range: $110K - $180K.
Location Context
Across all AI roles, 6% (531 positions) offer remote work, while 8,478 require on-site attendance. Top AI hiring metros: New York (3,078 roles, $221,000 median); San Francisco (2,646 roles, $261,000 median); Los Angeles (1,486 roles, $210,000 median).
Career Path
Common paths into Research Engineer roles include Software Engineer, ML Engineer, Research Intern.
From here, career progression typically leads toward Senior Research Engineer, Research Scientist, ML Architect.
This is one of the best entry points into AI research without a PhD. Build a strong engineering portfolio with ML projects, contribute to open-source ML frameworks, and demonstrate that you can implement complex ideas correctly and efficiently. The transition to Research Scientist is possible with published first-author work, which some research engineer roles support.
What to Expect in Interviews
Technical screens test both engineering skill and research understanding. Expect coding rounds with performance-critical implementations (GPU optimization, efficient data loading). Be prepared to discuss papers relevant to the team's research area and explain how you'd implement key ideas. System design questions focus on training infrastructure: distributed training, experiment tracking, and compute resource management.
When evaluating opportunities: Strong postings mention the team's recent research, the infrastructure scale, and the specific technical challenges. They often list the research areas you'd support. Look for roles that emphasize both implementation quality and research understanding.
AI Hiring Overview
The AI job market has 9,079 open positions tracked in our dataset. By seniority: 106 entry-level, 4,384 mid-level, 3,343 senior, and 1,246 leadership roles (Director, VP, C-Level). Remote roles make up 6% of the market (531 positions). The remaining 8,478 roles require on-site or hybrid attendance.
The market median for AI roles is $213,000. Top-quartile compensation starts at $263,911. The 90th percentile reaches $318,400. Highest-paying categories: AI Safety ($256,000 median, 66 roles); Research Engineer ($252,000 median, 457 roles); AI Engineering Manager ($251,622 median, 55 roles).
Research Engineer roles are growing as AI labs recognize that research velocity depends on engineering quality. The role is less competitive than Research Scientist (no PhD required), but the bar for engineering skill is very high. These roles are concentrated at major labs and well-funded startups.
The AI Job Market Today
The AI job market spans 9,079 open positions across 16 role categories. The largest categories by volume: AI/ML Engineer (6,862), AI Product Manager (453), AI Software Engineer (451). These three account for the majority of open positions, though smaller categories often have higher per-role compensation because of specialized skill requirements.
The seniority mix tells a story about where AI teams are in their maturity. Entry-level roles (106) are outnumbered by mid-level (4,384) and senior (3,343) positions, reflecting that most companies are past the 'build a team from scratch' phase and need experienced engineers who can ship production systems. Leadership roles (Director, VP, C-Level) total 1,246 positions, representing the bottleneck between technical execution and organizational strategy.
Remote work availability sits at 6% of all AI roles (531 positions), with 8,478 requiring on-site or hybrid attendance. The remote share has stabilized after the post-pandemic correction. Senior and specialized roles (Research Scientist, ML Architect) are more likely to be remote-eligible than entry-level positions, partly because experienced hires have more negotiating power and partly because these roles require less hands-on mentorship.
AI compensation is structured in clear tiers. The market median sits at $213,000. Top-quartile roles start at $263,911, and the 90th percentile reaches $318,400. These figures include base salary with disclosed compensation. Total compensation (including equity, bonuses, and sign-on) runs 20-40% higher at companies that offer those components.
Category matters for compensation. AI Safety roles lead at $256,000 median, while Prompt Engineer roles sit at $141,440. The spread between highest and lowest-paying categories reflects the premium on specialized technical skills versus broader analytical roles.
The most in-demand skills across all AI postings: Python (1,649 postings), Aws (898 postings), Azure (723 postings), Rag (671 postings), Gcp (536 postings), Pytorch (434 postings), Claude (410 postings), Kubernetes (406 postings). Python dominates, appearing in the vast majority of role descriptions regardless of category. Cloud platform experience (AWS, GCP, Azure) is the second most common requirement. The newer entrants to the top skills list (RAG, vector databases, LLM APIs) reflect the shift from traditional ML toward generative AI applications.
Frequently Asked Questions
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