{"id":25855,"url":"https://alion.io/job/archer-principal-ai-research-engineer","title":"Principal AI Research Engineer","company":{"id":6898,"name":"Archer Aviation","domain":"archer.com","url":"https://alion.io/company/archer","size_band":"1001-5000","is_staffing_agency":false,"employer_type":"direct","is_intermediary":false,"listed_via":null,"ats_vendor":"Greenhouse","truth_index":{"grade":"A","score":91,"open_postings":101,"ghost_share":0.059,"stale_share":0,"repost_share":0,"time_to_fill_p50_days":99,"computed_at":"2026-10-20T05:45:00Z"}},"role":"AI/ML","role_family":"AI/ML","seniority":"lead","employment_type":null,"work_mode":"on_site","remote_scope":null,"remote_scope_basis":null,"remote_working_hours":null,"hiring_geo_confidence":"structured","locations":["San Jose, United States"],"countries":["US"],"hiring_countries":[],"hiring_countries_total":0,"salary":{"min":270000,"max":340000,"currency":"USD","period":"year","gross":null,"usd_annual":340000},"salary_estimate":null,"experience_years_min":null,"visa_sponsorship":true,"relocation_package":false,"has_equity":false,"technologies":[{"name":"Edge AI","optional":false},{"name":"Fine-tuning","optional":false},{"name":"Imitation Learning","optional":false},{"name":"Machine Learning","optional":false},{"name":"Mixture of Experts","optional":false},{"name":"Model Distillation","optional":false},{"name":"Multimodal AI","optional":false},{"name":"PyTorch","optional":false},{"name":"Reinforcement Learning","optional":false},{"name":"Reinforcement Learning","optional":false},{"name":"Self-Supervised Learning","optional":false},{"name":"TensorFlow","optional":false},{"name":"Transformers","optional":false},{"name":"Vision-Language-Action","optional":true}],"status":"live","first_seen_at":"2026-05-06T23:15:04Z","employer_posted_date":"2026-09-02","last_verified_at":"2026-10-20T12:56:59Z","board_verified":true,"closed_at":null,"days_open":166,"trust":{"level":"ok","repost_count":0,"flags":["company_stale"],"days_open":166},"description":"Headquartered in Silicon Valley, California, Archer is a leader in the next-gen aerospace sector building an end-to-end advanced air mobility platform that delivers air taxis, unmanned aircraft systems (“UAS”), aviation-related physical artificial intelligence (“AI”) solutions, and other technologies to customers worldwide across the commercial aerospace and defense sectors.\nOur sights are set high and our problems are hard, and we believe that diversity in the workplace is what makes us smarter, drives better insights, and will ultimately lift us all to success. We are dedicated to cultivating an equitable and inclusive environment that embraces our differences, and supports and celebrates all of our team members.\nWhat You’ll Do:\nAs a Principal AI and ML fundamentalist who is an expert at developing cutting-edge AI solutions to complex problems, you will develop code that eventually integrates into production and be responsible for:\nDesign, implement, and evaluate novel machine learning and deep learning algorithms.\nIterate on AI model development; starting from the data needed for training, architecture, input/output representations, evaluation, and deployment. \nCollaborate with other researcher engineers to prototype and validate complex solutions from academic literature.\nConduct experiments to benchmark new techniques and evaluate model behavior.\nDevelop tools and frameworks to support scalable and reproducible research and development.\nCommunicate research findings to leadership in a concise, and convincing manner.\nStay current with the latest developments in AI/ML and identify relevant innovations.\nAssist in transitioning research prototypes into production-ready systems.\nWhat You Need:\nM.S or PhD degree in Computer Science, or Computer Engineering with strong emphasis on AI and ML.\nEnjoys solving less-defined and complex problems\nFamiliarity with good SW practices and development, including code quality, version control, etc.\nVery strong with ML frameworks such as Pytorch, or Tensorflow\nGood understanding of Transformer architectures, attention mechanisms, multi-modal foundation models, diffusion policies, fine-tuning, model distillation, mixture of experts, and other similar topics.\nHas strong ability to debug and determine requirements for AI models in terms of data, training, and evaluation.\nIs up to date with research literature and recent ML techniques and methodologies.\nBonus Qualifications:\nExperience with Reinforcement Learning, self-supervised training, and imitation learning is a plus.\nExperience developing VLA (Vision Language Action) models for robotic manipulation and mobility is a plus.\nExperience developing production AI models is a plus.\nPublications at top conferences are a plus.\nPlease note that this job description is intended to provide a general overview of the position and does not include an exhaustive list of responsibilities and qualifications\nAt Archer we aim to attract, retain, and motivate talent that possess the skills and leadership necessary to grow our business. We drive a pay-for-performance culture and reward performance that supports the Company’s business strategy. For this position we are targeting a base pay between $270,000.00 - $340,000.00 Actual compensation offered will be determined by factors such as job-related knowledge, skills, and experience.\nArcher is proud to be an Equal Opportunity employer committed to diversity and inclusivity in the workplace. All aspects of employment are decided on the basis of merit, qualifications, and business needs. We do not discriminate based upon race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, age, national origin, disability status, protected veteran status, gender identity or any other characteristic protected by federal, state or local laws.\nArcher is committed to working with and providing reasonable accommodations to job applicants with physical or mental disabilities, and those with sincerely held religious beliefs. Applicants who may require reasonable accommodation for any part of the application or hiring process should provide their name and contact information to Archer’s People Team at . Reasonable accommodations will be determined on a case-by-case basis.\nInformation collected and processed as part of any job applications you choose to submit is subject to Archer's Candidate Privacy Policy.\nCertain positions may be eligible for visa sponsorship.\nArcher is proud to be an Equal Opportunity employer committed to diversity and inclusivity in the workplace. All aspects of employment are decided on the basis of merit, qualifications, and business needs. We do not discriminate based upon race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, age, national origin, disability status, protected veteran status, gender identity or any other characteristic protected by federal, state or local laws.\nArcher Aviation does not engage with external recruiting agencies/individual recruiters with whom it does not have a prior written agreement. Archer reserves the right to make use of any unsolicited resumes that it receives and bears no responsibility for payment of any fees asserted from the use of unsolicited resumes. If you are a recruiting agency or individual recruiter wishing to do business with Archer, please reach out to . 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