Interested in this Research Engineer role at Packaging Technologies & Inspection, LLC?
Apply Now →About This Role
*Senior Lead Research Engineer*
*PTI R\&D Department*
PTI Corporation Job Description
Reports to:
R\&D
Job Status:
New Position
Salary Range:
$90,000\-$120,000
Job Location:
PTI Corporate Office, Hawthorne, NY
PTI \- Packaging Technologies \& Inspection is headquartered in Hawthorne, New York, a Westchester County community close to New York City. We are a team of engineers, scientists and professionals serving the packaging industry as a leading equipment manufacturer of package inspection equipment for the pharmaceutical, medical devices, food, and container industries.
PTI’s management and R \& D team focus has been on developing inspection technologies for the packaging industry that perform with a high degree of precision and reliability, and simplify testing and validation processes in the pharmaceutical, medical device, food and container industries.
PTI’s inspection technologies are non\-destructive, non\-subjective and provide companies with solutions to improve their quality and process control, while reducing product waste and cost.
As we continue our successful journey, we are looking to add more talented, innovative and dedicated engineers to our team. So, if you are someone who enjoys work because of the sense of accomplishment that it gives you, and if you want to be part of a high impact team working for a global company that is the leader in the Container Closure Integrity testing industry, then contact us, because working at PTI is not just a job….it’s a passion!
The Team: PTI R\&D Department
This position is as a team member of PTI’s R\&D Department, which is responsible for designing and developing the most sophisticated non\-destructive container closure system inspection technologies in the world.
The Role: Senior Lead Research Engineer
Seeking an experienced, dynamic, creative, technically intelligent professional for the position of Senior Lead Research Engineer for PTI’s R\&D Department. Technical expertise, thorough understanding of equipment design, machine integration and experience with industrial equipment development is required.
Are you a researcher? Are you a developer? Are you interested in developing and generating new ideas?
Position is responsible for the design of parts, components, systems, and integrated solutions for inspection equipment. The role would primarily be dealing in the research, development and engineering functions within the company. Position requires high level of energy, collaboration, creativity, deep thinking, and an appreciation for leading edge sensory solutions.
A collaborative, dynamic, creative, deep thinking and technically intelligent professional is being sought to provide “hands\-on” mechanical engineering expertise to our engineering team and to customer sites. This position is responsible for sound mechanical design, effectively working through assembly challenges and providing improvement ideas to previously released products. We are looking for candidates who are comfortable working with mechanical design and parts, and interfacing with electro\-mechanical systems. This role requires practical thinking around all aspects of engineered solutions.
Job Duties
Ø Leading Teams
Ø Develop technical solutions around customer, market and internal requirements.
Ø Mentoring and developing junior engineers
Ø Manage multiple, major projects and programs for PTI, including financial and time budgets, stage gate design reviews and company communication
Ø Provide service \& support for all PTI systems.
Ø Technical knowledge of all PTI offerings.
Skills and Qualifications
Ø Degree from 4\-year secondary education program.
Ø At least \+10 Years’ Experience in the areas of Design, Integration, Machine Manufacturing, Parts Engineering, Mechanical Systems, or Equipment Development. Experience in equipment preferred.
Ø Experience leading a team and growing individuals professionally
Ø Advanced proficiency in CAD Software (SolidWorks preferred).
Ø Adept at generating technical reports.
Ø Project management experience, managing budgets, timelines and both internal and external customers.
Ø Excellent Communication Skills and ability to present effectively to customers, internal \& external.
Ø Detail oriented, hands\-on and action oriented. Ability to assess next steps and see beyond immediate tasks at hand.
Ø Candidates must present cases of past successful projects.
Ø Position will be based out of PTI office in Hawthorne, NY.
Benefits:
In addition to a competitive salary and benefits package, the position offers an opportunity to work in the following culture:
· 40\-hour work weeks, 8\-5 (Office cleared out by 6 PM)
· Progressive vacation plan
· Global mindset and an intelligent team of employees
Upon joining the team, you could find yourself working on patentable technologies and providing a comprehensive solution to improve the quality of high risk packaged products. The solutions are delivered to sites globally. No Two days are the same, we are seeking someone that deeply appreciates the dynamic aspect of this role.
ALL qualified applicants will receive consideration. PTI is an Equal Opportunity Employer.
Pay: $90,000\.00 \- $120,000\.00 per year
Benefits:
- 401(k) matching
- Dental insurance
- Flexible spending account
- Health insurance
- Life insurance
- Paid time off
- Vision insurance
Work Location: In person
Salary Context
This $90K-$120K range is in the lower quartile for Research Engineer roles in our dataset (median: $185K across 51 roles with salary data).
View full Research Engineer salary data →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 3,824 AI roles we're tracking, Research Engineer positions make up 2% of the market. At Packaging Technologies & Inspection, LLC, 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 in Demand for This Role
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 $260,000 based on 401 positions with disclosed compensation. Senior-level AI roles across all categories have a median of $227,400. This role's midpoint ($105K) sits 60% below the category median. Disclosed range: $90K to $120K.
Across all AI roles, the market median is $200,000. Top-quartile compensation starts at $253,000. The 90th percentile reaches $307,500. For comparison, the highest-paying categories include AI Engineering Manager ($293,500) and AI Safety ($274,200). By seniority level: Entry: $97,380; Mid: $160,000; Senior: $227,400; Director: $243,000; VP: $250,000.
Packaging Technologies & Inspection, LLC AI Hiring
Packaging Technologies & Inspection, LLC has 1 open AI role right now. They're hiring across Research Engineer. Based in Hawthorne, NY, US. Compensation range: $120K - $120K.
Location Context
Across all AI roles, 16% (613 positions) offer remote work, while 3,187 require on-site attendance. Top AI hiring metros: New York (2,448 roles, $210,000 median); San Francisco (1,990 roles, $253,000 median); Los Angeles (1,686 roles, $189,000 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 3,824 open positions tracked in our dataset. By seniority: 119 entry-level, 1,813 mid-level, 1,472 senior, and 420 leadership roles (Director, VP, C-Level). Remote roles make up 16% of the market (613 positions). The remaining 3,187 roles require on-site or hybrid attendance.
The market median for AI roles is $200,000. Top-quartile compensation starts at $253,000. The 90th percentile reaches $307,500. Highest-paying categories: AI Engineering Manager ($293,500 median, 31 roles); AI Safety ($274,200 median, 51 roles); Research Engineer ($260,000 median, 401 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 3,824 open positions across 15 role categories. The largest categories by volume: AI/ML Engineer (2,702), Data Scientist (281), AI Software Engineer (258). 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 (119) are outnumbered by mid-level (1,813) and senior (1,472) 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 420 positions, representing the bottleneck between technical execution and organizational strategy.
Remote work availability sits at 16% of all AI roles (613 positions), with 3,187 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 $200,000. Top-quartile roles start at $253,000, and the 90th percentile reaches $307,500. 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 Engineering Manager roles lead at $293,500 median, while Prompt Engineer roles sit at $142,800. 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 (1,968 postings), Aws (1,203 postings), Azure (882 postings), Rag (877 postings), Gcp (735 postings), Prompt Engineering (587 postings), Pytorch (586 postings), Claude (554 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
Get Weekly AI Career Intelligence
Salary data, skills demand, and market signals from 16,000+ AI job postings. Every Monday.