Director, Applied AI Research - Compute & Systems

Responsibilities

• Define and own an applied AI research agenda focused on compute and hardware, including kernel/compiler optimization and design-space exploration.
• Build, lead, and mentor a high-caliber team of applied researchers and research engineers.
• Use recursive self-improvement loops to drive verifiable gains on concrete compute and hardware targets.
• Design and partner with teams to own evaluation, simulation, and verification infrastructure.
• Mitigate practical failure modes of reinforcement learning, such as reward hacking and evaluation gaming.
• Partner across silicon, architecture, compiler, and software engineering teams to ensure research adoption.
• Represent the applied research agenda to executive leadership and communicate roadmap implications.

Requirements

• PhD in Computer Science, Electrical Engineering, Machine Learning, or a related field (or equivalent research experience).
• Demonstrated technical leadership in applied AI/ML research with a track record of production impact.
• Deep expertise in reinforcement learning, including reward modeling and training pipelines.
• Strong grounding in AI-for-systems and hardware/software co-design.
• Experience building evaluation, simulation, or verification infrastructure.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience leading research teams and setting direction across multiple concurrent workstreams.
• Ability to remain hands-on with training pipelines, kernels, or research prototyping.
• Proven track record of attracting, hiring, and developing top applied AI research talent.
• Strong cross-functional collaboration skills with experience landing research inside engineering organizations.

About the Company

AMD is on a mission to build great products that accelerate next-generation computing experiences—from AI and data centers to PCs, gaming, and embedded systems. Grounded in a culture of innovation and collaboration, we push the limits of technology to solve the world’s most important challenges.