Mid Level Staff Researcher Jobs
Mid level staff researcher jobs go to researchers ready to own projects end to end, guide junior colleagues, and deliver findings that directly shape decisions with limited oversight. Openings run across Technology & Software, Artificial Intelligence, and Education, with 13% remote or hybrid availability, and employers like Scale AI, Google, and RoboForce hiring at this level now.
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Showing 5 of 20+ Mid Level Staff Researcher jobs
Job Description
At General Motors, our product teams are redefining mobility. Through a human-centered design process, we create vehicles and experiences that are designed not just to be seen, but to be felt. We’re turning today’s impossible into tomorrow’s standard — from breakthrough hardware and battery systems to intuitive design, intelligent software, and next-generation safety and entertainment features. Every day, our products move millions of people as we aim to make driving safer, smarter, and more connected, shaping the future of transportation on a global scale.
The Role
Are you ready to redefine mobility and shape the future of autonomous transportation? As a Staff Research Scientist specializing in Vision-Language Models (VLMs), Vision-Language-Action models (VLAs), and Onboard Foundational Models, you will advance the frontier of artificial intelligence to solve the most challenging problems in autonomous driving. In this role, you will bridge the gap between large-scale multimodal foundational AI and real-time physical systems. You will lead the design, training, and optimization of state-of-the-art models that allow vehicles to deeply understand complex visual scenes, reason through open-ended scenarios, and translate multimodal inputs directly into safe, actionable driving decisions. Crucially, your work will focus not just on cloud-scale intelligence, but on pioneering the techniques required to compress, quantize, and deploy these massive architectures directly onto resource-constrained onboard vehicle hardware. You will help shape strategic technical directions, mentor a world-class team of engineers, and represent our organization at top global artificial intelligence conferences.
What You’ll Do
- Research, design, and prototype advanced Vision-Language Models and Vision-Language-Action foundational models tailored for real-time semantic understanding and behavioral prediction in autonomous driving.
- Drive the technical strategy for onboard model optimization, leading initiatives in model quantization, pruning, knowledge distillation, and compilation to ensure high-parameter models execute with ultra-low latency on vehicle edge hardware.
- Advance multimodal alignment techniques, ensuring seamless integration of camera, radar, LiDAR, and textual/logical prompts into unified foundational architectures.
- Influence technical roadmaps and shape strategic machine learning priorities that align with safety requirements, core product milestones, and next-generation vehicle launches.
- Provide technical mentorship and long-term vision to a multidisciplinary group of machine learning engineers, software developers, and hardware specialists.
- Foster internal innovation by collaborating closely with perception, planning, and infrastructure teams to integrate foundational models into the core autonomous software stack.
- Represent the company externally to the global scientific community by publishing original research, securing patents, and presenting at top-tier artificial intelligence and robotics conferences.
Your Skills & Abilities (Required Qualifications)
- Ph.D. in Machine Learning, Robotics, Computer Science, Electrical Engineering, or a related technical field.
- 5+ years of experience in AI/ML research and applied development.
- Deep expertise in modern ML architectures (transformers, generative AI, multimodal systems).
- Strong programming skills in Python.
- Excellent communication, collaboration, and mentoring abilities, comfortable influencing technical strategy and guiding ML excellence across the organization.
What Will Give You A Competitive Edge (Preferred Qualifications)
- Demonstrated research impact in AI/ML technologies either through important publications in top conferences or demonstrated contribution to industry leading systems.
- AV/ADAS experience
Remote:
This role is based remotely but if you live within a 50-mile radius of Mountain View, you are expected to report to that location three times a week, at minimum.
Compensation:
The compensation information is a good faith estimate only. It is based on what a successful applicant might be paid in accordance with applicable state laws. The compensation may not be representative for positions located outside of New York, Colorado, California, or Washington.
- The salary range for this role is $218,800.00 to $335,300.00. The actual base salary a successful candidate will be offered within this range will vary based on factors relevant to the position.
- Bonus Potential: An incentive pay program offers payouts based on company performance, job level, and individual performance.
Benefits:
- GM offers a variety of health and wellbeing benefit programs. Benefit options include medical, dental, vision, Health Savings Account, Flexible Spending Accounts, retirement savings plan, sickness and accident benefits, life insurance, paid vacation & holidays, tuition assistance programs, employee assistance program, GM vehicle discounts and more.
- This job may be eligible for relocation benefits.
- Company Vehicle: Upon successful completion of a motor vehicle report review, you will be eligible to participate in a company vehicle evaluation program, through which you will be assigned a General Motors vehicle to drive and evaluate. Note: program participants are required to purchase/lease a qualifying GM vehicle every four years unless one of a limited number of exceptions applies.
About GM
Our vision is a world with Zero Crashes, Zero Emissions and Zero Congestion and we embrace the responsibility to lead the change that will make our world better, safer and more equitable for all.
Why Join Us
We believe we all must make a choice every day – individually and collectively – to drive meaningful change through our words, our deeds and our culture. Every day, we want every employee to feel they belong to one General Motors team.
Benefits Overview
From day one, we're looking out for your well-being–at work and at home–so you can focus on realizing your ambitions. Learn how GM supports a rewarding career that rewards you personally by visiting Total Rewards resources.
Non-Discrimination and Equal Employment Opportunities (U.S.)
General Motors is committed to being a workplace that is not only free of unlawful discrimination, but one that genuinely fosters inclusion and belonging. We strongly believe that providing an inclusive workplace creates an environment in which our employees can thrive and develop better products for our customers. All employment decisions are made on a non-discriminatory basis without regard to sex, race, color, national origin, citizenship status, religion, age, disability, pregnancy or maternity status, sexual orientation, gender identity, status as a veteran or protected veteran, or any other similarly protected status in accordance with federal, state and local laws. We encourage interested candidates to review the key responsibilities and qualifications for each role and apply for any positions that match their skills and capabilities. Applicants in the recruitment process may be required, where applicable, to successfully complete a role-related assessment(s) and/or a pre-employment screening prior to beginning employment. To learn more, visit How we Hire.
Accommodations
General Motors offers opportunities to all job seekers including individuals with disabilities. If you need a reasonable accommodation to assist with your job search or application for employment, email us or call us at 1-800-865-7580. In your email, please include a description of the specific accommodation you are requesting as well as the job title and requisition number of the position for which you are applying.
Job Description
At General Motors, our product teams are redefining mobility. Through a human-centered design process, we create vehicles and experiences that are designed not just to be seen, but to be felt. We’re turning today’s impossible into tomorrow’s standard — from breakthrough hardware and battery systems to intuitive design, intelligent software, and next-generation safety and entertainment features. Every day, our products move millions of people as we aim to make driving safer, smarter, and more connected, shaping the future of transportation on a global scale.
The Role
Are you ready to redefine mobility and shape the future of autonomous transportation? As a Staff Research Scientist specializing in Vision-Language Models (VLMs), Vision-Language-Action models (VLAs), and Onboard Foundational Models, you will advance the frontier of artificial intelligence to solve the most challenging problems in autonomous driving. In this role, you will bridge the gap between large-scale multimodal foundational AI and real-time physical systems. You will lead the design, training, and optimization of state-of-the-art models that allow vehicles to deeply understand complex visual scenes, reason through open-ended scenarios, and translate multimodal inputs directly into safe, actionable driving decisions. Crucially, your work will focus not just on cloud-scale intelligence, but on pioneering the techniques required to compress, quantize, and deploy these massive architectures directly onto resource-constrained onboard vehicle hardware. You will help shape strategic technical directions, mentor a world-class team of engineers, and represent our organization at top global artificial intelligence conferences.
What You’ll Do
- Research, design, and prototype advanced Vision-Language Models and Vision-Language-Action foundational models tailored for real-time semantic understanding and behavioral prediction in autonomous driving.
- Drive the technical strategy for onboard model optimization, leading initiatives in model quantization, pruning, knowledge distillation, and compilation to ensure high-parameter models execute with ultra-low latency on vehicle edge hardware.
- Advance multimodal alignment techniques, ensuring seamless integration of camera, radar, LiDAR, and textual/logical prompts into unified foundational architectures.
- Influence technical roadmaps and shape strategic machine learning priorities that align with safety requirements, core product milestones, and next-generation vehicle launches.
- Provide technical mentorship and long-term vision to a multidisciplinary group of machine learning engineers, software developers, and hardware specialists.
- Foster internal innovation by collaborating closely with perception, planning, and infrastructure teams to integrate foundational models into the core autonomous software stack.
- Represent the company externally to the global scientific community by publishing original research, securing patents, and presenting at top-tier artificial intelligence and robotics conferences.
Your Skills & Abilities (Required Qualifications)
- Ph.D. in Machine Learning, Robotics, Computer Science, Electrical Engineering, or a related technical field.
- 5+ years of experience in AI/ML research and applied development.
- Deep expertise in modern ML architectures (transformers, generative AI, multimodal systems).
- Strong programming skills in Python.
- Excellent communication, collaboration, and mentoring abilities, comfortable influencing technical strategy and guiding ML excellence across the organization.
What Will Give You A Competitive Edge (Preferred Qualifications)
- Demonstrated research impact in AI/ML technologies either through important publications in top conferences or demonstrated contribution to industry leading systems.
- AV/ADAS experience
Remote:
This role is based remotely but if you live within a 50-mile radius of Mountain View, you are expected to report to that location three times a week, at minimum.
Compensation:
The compensation information is a good faith estimate only. It is based on what a successful applicant might be paid in accordance with applicable state laws. The compensation may not be representative for positions located outside of New York, Colorado, California, or Washington.
- The salary range for this role is $218,800.00 to $335,300.00. The actual base salary a successful candidate will be offered within this range will vary based on factors relevant to the position.
- Bonus Potential: An incentive pay program offers payouts based on company performance, job level, and individual performance.
Benefits:
- GM offers a variety of health and wellbeing benefit programs. Benefit options include medical, dental, vision, Health Savings Account, Flexible Spending Accounts, retirement savings plan, sickness and accident benefits, life insurance, paid vacation & holidays, tuition assistance programs, employee assistance program, GM vehicle discounts and more.
- This job may be eligible for relocation benefits.
- Company Vehicle: Upon successful completion of a motor vehicle report review, you will be eligible to participate in a company vehicle evaluation program, through which you will be assigned a General Motors vehicle to drive and evaluate. Note: program participants are required to purchase/lease a qualifying GM vehicle every four years unless one of a limited number of exceptions applies.
About GM
Our vision is a world with Zero Crashes, Zero Emissions and Zero Congestion and we embrace the responsibility to lead the change that will make our world better, safer and more equitable for all.
Why Join Us
We believe we all must make a choice every day – individually and collectively – to drive meaningful change through our words, our deeds and our culture. Every day, we want every employee to feel they belong to one General Motors team.
Benefits Overview
From day one, we're looking out for your well-being–at work and at home–so you can focus on realizing your ambitions. Learn how GM supports a rewarding career that rewards you personally by visiting Total Rewards resources.
Non-Discrimination and Equal Employment Opportunities (U.S.)
General Motors is committed to being a workplace that is not only free of unlawful discrimination, but one that genuinely fosters inclusion and belonging. We strongly believe that providing an inclusive workplace creates an environment in which our employees can thrive and develop better products for our customers. All employment decisions are made on a non-discriminatory basis without regard to sex, race, color, national origin, citizenship status, religion, age, disability, pregnancy or maternity status, sexual orientation, gender identity, status as a veteran or protected veteran, or any other similarly protected status in accordance with federal, state and local laws. We encourage interested candidates to review the key responsibilities and qualifications for each role and apply for any positions that match their skills and capabilities. Applicants in the recruitment process may be required, where applicable, to successfully complete a role-related assessment(s) and/or a pre-employment screening prior to beginning employment. To learn more, visit How we Hire.
Accommodations
General Motors offers opportunities to all job seekers including individuals with disabilities. If you need a reasonable accommodation to assist with your job search or application for employment, email us or call us at 1-800-865-7580. In your email, please include a description of the specific accommodation you are requesting as well as the job title and requisition number of the position for which you are applying.
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- Education1
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Mid Level Staff Researcher Jobs: Frequently Asked Questions
How do I get a mid level staff researcher job?
Position yourself by showing ownership, not just contribution. Highlight projects where you led the research design, synthesized findings independently, and influenced a product or business decision. Tailor your portfolio and resume to demonstrate scope, not just tasks. Employers at this level want to see that you can run a study from brief to recommendation without constant guidance.
Which companies hire mid level staff researchers?
Companies hiring mid level staff researchers right now include Scale AI, Google, and RoboForce, based on current listings on Migrate Mate as of November 2026. At this level, hiring tends to come from organizations large enough to have dedicated research functions, including established tech companies, consumer brands, and research-driven consulting and healthcare organizations.
Are there remote mid level staff researcher jobs?
Yes, remote and hybrid options are common at this level. About 13% of mid level staff researcher openings are remote or hybrid as of November 2026, reflecting how research work, particularly synthesis, reporting, and remote moderation, translates well to distributed environments. On-site roles tend to cluster around labs, clinics, or organizations requiring in-person participant work.
How do I move up to a mid level staff researcher role?
Moving into mid level comes from accumulating depth across the full research cycle. Early-career researchers grow by taking on more complex study designs, owning a project from start to finish, building a track of measurable impact on decisions, and developing fluency in multiple methods. Demonstrating that your work changed something, not just informed it, is what signals readiness for mid level scope.
Which industries hire the most mid level staff researchers?
Mid Level staff researcher roles concentrate in Technology & Software, Artificial Intelligence, and Education, based on current listings on Migrate Mate as of November 2026. These sectors drive hiring because they depend on user insights, behavioral data, or policy research to shape products, services, or organizational strategy, creating sustained demand for researchers who can work independently at this level.