Senior Research Engineer, Mechanical Intuition in Multimodal Models

Posted:
4/2/2026, 6:21:06 AM

Location(s):
Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States ⋅ California, United States ⋅ Los Altos, California, United States ⋅ Massachusetts, United States

Experience Level(s):
Senior

Field(s):
Software Engineering

Workplace Type:
Hybrid

Pay:
$169/hr or $351,520 total comp

At Toyota Research Institute (TRI), we’re on a mission to improve the quality of human life. We’re developing new tools and capabilities to amplify the human experience. To lead this transformative shift in mobility, we’ve built a world-class team advancing the state of the art in AI, robotics, driving, and material sciences.


The Team

The Future Factory team in TRI's Energy and Materials division focuses on developing cutting-edge tools and methods to accelerate change and increase flexibility and efficiency in Toyota's product design and manufacturing, to speed the transition to an emissions-free world. To achieve this we are building end-to-end AI systems that can reason about how physical objects are designed and made — from geometry and constraints through to simulation and assembly — and developing the engineering infrastructure needed to train, evaluate, and iterate on these systems at scale.

The Opportunity

We are looking for a Senior Research Engineer to join us in building the systems and tools that power our research on physical AI. This role is well-suited for someone with a strong software engineering foundation, deep experience working with geometry or physical modeling, and a genuine interest in how things are made.

As a research engineer on the team, you will design and build the pipelines and tooling that allow researchers to move fast and measure what matters — from large-scale training and evaluation infrastructure to the geometry processing and physics-aware components at the core of our models. You will work at the intersection of software engineering and research, translating emerging ideas into robust, production-quality implementations.

The pay range for this position at commencement of employment is expected to be between $180,000 and $258,750/year for California-based roles, and between $162,000 and $232,875/year for Massachusetts-based roles. Base pay offered will depend on multiple individualized factors, including, but not limited to, a candidate's experience, skills, job-related knowledge, and market location. TRI offers a generous benefits package including medical, dental, and vision insurance, 401(k) eligibility, paid time off benefits (including vacation, sick time, and parental leave), and an annual cash bonus structure. Additional details regarding these benefit plans will be provided if an employee receives an offer of employment.

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TRI is fueled by a diverse and inclusive community of people with unique backgrounds, education and life experiences. We are dedicated to fostering an innovative and collaborative environment by living the values that are an essential part of our culture. We believe diversity makes us stronger and are proud to provide Equal Employment Opportunity for all, without regard to an applicant’s race, color, creed, gender, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, national origin, age, physical or mental disability, medical condition, religion, marital status, genetic information, veteran status, or any other status protected under federal, state or local laws.
 
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