Senior Applied Research Scientist – GPU Native Numerical Algorithms

$192K - $356K CA, US Senior Research Scientist

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Skills & Technologies

Python

About This Role

AI job market dashboard showing open roles by category

NVIDIA pioneered accelerated computing. Today, we are building software, systems, and research platforms that help scientists and engineers solve problems that were once out of reach. We are looking for an Applied Research Scientist to join our computational engineering applied research team! In this role, we will work together to design GPU\-native numerical methods that make engineering simulation faster, more reliable, and easier to use across NVIDIA platforms, while providing the numerical foundations for emerging AI\-native engineering algorithms. You will explore solver algorithms, build research prototypes, compare approaches on representative workloads, and help move promising ideas into software used by researchers, engineers, and partners. The goal is not simply to port established CPU algorithms, but to rethink methods around massive parallelism, hierarchical memory, reduced synchronization, mixed precision, tensor\-core computation, and multi\-GPU systems.

This role connects numerical analysis, accelerated computing, production\-minded software engineering, and the co\-design of future AI\-native engineering methods. We are interested in candidates who enjoy working across math, code, hardware, and real engineering applications. Come help us shape the future of simulation on GPUs!

What you'll be doing:

We work as a team, and you will help us:

  • Invent and reformulate numerical algorithms whose mathematical and computational structure is co\-designed for modern NVIDIA GPU architectures, including implicit and explicit engineering simulation.
  • Develop linear and nonlinear solver approaches, including Newton\-Krylov methods, multigrid and AMG, domain decomposition, matrix\-free algorithms, mixed precision methods, sparse iterative and direct methods, and preconditioning strategies.
  • Investigate when established CPU\-oriented numerical methods should be reformulated or replaced for GPU architectures, including new approaches to synchronization\-avoiding Krylov methods, GPU\-native multigrid and domain decomposition, matrix\-free implicit methods, mixed\-precision algorithms, and sparse direct/iterative hybrids.
  • Evaluate algorithms on workloads in mechanics, contact, thermal\-fluid systems, electromagnetics, semiconductor process and device simulation, EDA, multiphysics, and related CAE domains.
  • Collaborate with CUDA\-X, Warp, solver engineering, NVIDIA Research, universities, and industry partners to move useful research from prototype to NVIDIA software capabilities.
  • Help shape the long\-term applied research roadmap for GPU\-native numerical methods and their evolution toward AI\-native computational engineering.

What we need to see:

  • PhD or equivalent experience in computational mechanics, applied mathematics, scientific computing, computer science, aerospace, mechanical, civil engineering, or a related technical field.
  • 5\+ years of relevant work/research experience.
  • Research or engineering experience with PDE discretization, finite element, finite volume, discontinuous Galerkin methods, nonlinear solvers, sparse linear algebra, preconditioning, or high\-performance computing.
  • Experience writing numerical software in C\+\+ and Python, plus experience developing or optimizing CUDA or GPU code.
  • Experience using profiling, benchmarking, numerical validation, or performance analysis to improve algorithms on GPU or multi\-GPU systems.
  • Ability to communicate technical tradeoffs clearly and collaborate across research, engineering, product, and partner teams.

Ways to stand out from the crowd:

  • Experience with implicit structural dynamics, nonlinear mechanics, contact, CFD, electromagnetics, multiphysics, semiconductor simulation, EDA, CAE, or CAD\-connected engineering workflows.
  • Contributions to or practical experience with PETSc, Trilinos, MFEM, libCEED, OpenFOAM, NVIDIA Warp, CUDA\-X, cuSPARSE, cuSOLVER, or related computational science frameworks.
  • Experience with industrial simulation, EDA, semiconductor, CAE, or CAD ecosystems, including Ansys, Abaqus, LS\-DYNA, Siemens Simcenter, Dassault SIMULIA, Altair, Cadence, Synopsys, COMSOL, MathWorks, or comparable internal solver and design platforms.
  • Experience with distributed solvers using MPI, NCCL, asynchronous methods, or performance analysis on GPU clusters.
  • Publications, patents, open\-source work, or deployed software in computational science venues or communities such as SC, SIAM CSE, SIAM SISC, CMAME, IJNME, JCP, AIAA, USNCCM, WCCM, or related areas.

Your base salary will be determined based on your location, experience, and the pay of employees in similar positions. The base salary range is 192,000 USD \- 304,750 USD for Level 4, and 224,000 USD \- 356,500 USD for Level 5\.

You will also be eligible for equity and benefits.

Applications for this job will be accepted at least until August 17, 2026\.

This posting is for an existing vacancy.

NVIDIA uses AI tools in its recruiting processes.

NVIDIA is committed to fostering an inclusive work environment and proud to be an equal opportunity employer. As we highly value diversity in our current and future employees, we do not discriminate (including in our hiring and promotion practices) on the basis of race, religion, color, national origin, gender, gender expression, sexual orientation, age, marital status, veteran status, disability status or any other characteristic protected by law.

Salary Context

This $192K-$356K range is above the 75th percentile for Research Scientist roles in our dataset (median: $195K across 149 roles with salary data).

Role Details

Company NVIDIA
Title Senior Applied Research Scientist – GPU Native Numerical Algorithms
Location CA, US
Category Research Scientist
Experience Senior
Salary $192K - $356K
Remote No

About This Role

Research Scientists push the boundaries of what AI can do. They design experiments, develop novel architectures, publish papers, and translate research breakthroughs into production capabilities. This is where the fundamental advances happen, from attention mechanisms to diffusion models to reasoning chains.

The work is intellectually demanding and often ambiguous. You might spend months on an approach that doesn't pan out. The best research scientists combine deep mathematical intuition with engineering pragmatism. They know when to go deep on theory and when to run experiments. They read papers voraciously and can spot incremental contributions from genuine breakthroughs.

Across the 4,317 AI roles we're tracking, Research Scientist positions make up 4% of the market. At NVIDIA, this role fits into their broader AI and engineering organization.

Research Scientist roles are concentrated at major AI labs (OpenAI, Anthropic, Google DeepMind, Meta FAIR) and well-funded AI startups. The competition is intense. PhD is effectively required for most positions, and publication track record matters. Compensation is among the highest in AI, reflecting both the scarcity of talent and the strategic importance of research breakthroughs.

What the Work Looks Like

A typical week includes: reading and discussing recent papers with your team, designing and running experiments on multi-GPU clusters, analyzing results and iterating on hypotheses, writing up findings for internal review or publication, and collaborating with engineering teams to productionize promising results. The ratio of thinking to coding is higher than in engineering roles.

Research Scientist roles are concentrated at major AI labs (OpenAI, Anthropic, Google DeepMind, Meta FAIR) and well-funded AI startups. The competition is intense. PhD is effectively required for most positions, and publication track record matters. Compensation is among the highest in AI, reflecting both the scarcity of talent and the strategic importance of research breakthroughs.

Skills Required

Python (52% of roles)

PhD strongly preferred for most roles. Deep expertise in a specific area (NLP, computer vision, reinforcement learning, multimodal) is expected. PyTorch is the standard. Publication track record matters. Strong mathematical foundations in linear algebra, probability, optimization, and information theory are assumed.

Beyond the fundamentals, companies value experience with large-scale distributed training, novel architecture design, and the ability to bridge theory and practice. Understanding of current frontier topics (reasoning, multimodal, long-context, alignment) is essential. Code quality matters more than many researchers expect. Labs want researchers who can implement their ideas cleanly.

Strong research postings specify the research area, mention the team you'd join, and describe the problems they're working on. They often list recent publications from the team. Vague 'AI research' postings without specifics usually mean the company wants to sound impressive but doesn't have a real research agenda.

Compensation Benchmarks

Research Scientist roles pay a median of $222,200 based on 378 positions with disclosed compensation. Senior-level AI roles across all categories have a median of $227,400. This role's midpoint ($274K) sits 23% above the category median. Disclosed range: $192K to $356K.

Across all AI roles, the market median is $215,000. Top-quartile compensation starts at $266,300. The 90th percentile reaches $320,790. For comparison, the highest-paying categories include AI Safety ($287,500) and Research Engineer ($272,100). By seniority level: Entry: $110,000; Mid: $194,400; Senior: $227,400; Director: $274,554; VP: $241,000.

NVIDIA AI Hiring

NVIDIA has 28 open AI roles right now. They're hiring across AI/ML Engineer, AI Software Engineer, AI Product Manager, Research Scientist. Positions span Santa Clara, CA, US, Austin, TX, US, CA, US. Compensation range: $195K - $431K.

Location Context

Across all AI roles, 15% (635 positions) offer remote work, while 3,657 require on-site attendance. Top AI hiring metros: New York (1,650 roles, $220,000 median); San Francisco (1,335 roles, $265,000 median); Los Angeles (708 roles, $214,112 median).

Career Path

Common paths into Research Scientist roles include PhD Student, Research Engineer, Postdoc.

From here, career progression typically leads toward Research Lead, Distinguished Scientist, VP of Research.

The PhD is the entry point for most paths. Choose your advisor and research area carefully since they'll define your first industry position. Publish consistently, contribute to open-source projects in your area, and build relationships at conferences. Industry research offers better compensation and compute resources than academia, but the pressure to show product impact is real.

What to Expect in Interviews

Research interviews are multi-stage: a research talk (present your best paper), technical deep-dives on your methodology, and often a 'research proposal' exercise where you design an experiment to test a hypothesis. Coding rounds test implementation ability alongside theoretical knowledge. Be prepared to implement a paper from scratch and discuss the design choices the authors made. Strong candidates can critique papers constructively and identify gaps in experimental methodology.

When evaluating opportunities: Strong research postings specify the research area, mention the team you'd join, and describe the problems they're working on. They often list recent publications from the team. Vague 'AI research' postings without specifics usually mean the company wants to sound impressive but doesn't have a real research agenda.

AI Hiring Overview

The AI job market has 4,317 open positions tracked in our dataset. By seniority: 138 entry-level, 2,071 mid-level, 1,655 senior, and 453 leadership roles (Director, VP, C-Level). Remote roles make up 15% of the market (635 positions). The remaining 3,657 roles require on-site or hybrid attendance.

The market median for AI roles is $215,000. Top-quartile compensation starts at $266,300. The 90th percentile reaches $320,790. Highest-paying categories: AI Safety ($287,500 median, 34 roles); Research Engineer ($272,100 median, 227 roles); AI Engineering Manager ($244,000 median, 23 roles).

Research Scientist roles are concentrated at major AI labs (OpenAI, Anthropic, Google DeepMind, Meta FAIR) and well-funded AI startups. The competition is intense. PhD is effectively required for most positions, and publication track record matters. Compensation is among the highest in AI, reflecting both the scarcity of talent and the strategic importance of research breakthroughs.

The AI Job Market Today

The AI job market spans 4,317 open positions across 15 role categories. The largest categories by volume: AI/ML Engineer (3,004), Data Scientist (345), AI Software Engineer (309). 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 (138) are outnumbered by mid-level (2,071) and senior (1,655) 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 453 positions, representing the bottleneck between technical execution and organizational strategy.

Remote work availability sits at 15% of all AI roles (635 positions), with 3,657 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 $215,000. Top-quartile roles start at $266,300, and the 90th percentile reaches $320,790. 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 $287,500 median, while Prompt Engineer roles sit at $145,000. 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 (2,249 postings), Aws (1,224 postings), Azure (938 postings), Rag (915 postings), Gcp (660 postings), Pytorch (640 postings), Prompt Engineering (624 postings), Kubernetes (559 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

Based on 378 roles with disclosed compensation, the median salary for Research Scientist positions is $222,200. Actual compensation varies by seniority, location, and company stage.
PhD strongly preferred for most roles. Deep expertise in a specific area (NLP, computer vision, reinforcement learning, multimodal) is expected. PyTorch is the standard. Publication track record matters. Strong mathematical foundations in linear algebra, probability, optimization, and information theory are assumed.
About 15% of the 4,317 AI roles we track offer remote work. Remote availability varies by company and seniority level, with senior and leadership roles more likely to offer location flexibility.
NVIDIA is among the companies actively hiring for AI and ML talent. Check our company profiles for detailed breakdowns of open roles, salary ranges, and hiring trends.
Common next steps from Research Scientist positions include Research Lead, Distinguished Scientist, VP of Research. Progression depends on whether you lean toward technical depth, people management, or product strategy.

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