Machine Learning Jobs in USA with Visa Sponsorship
Machine learning roles in the US span academic research labs, big tech research divisions, and applied teams at companies across every industry, all of which regularly sponsor international talent. A strong publication record, conference presentations at venues like NeurIPS or ICML, and demonstrated research contributions significantly strengthen both your job applications and your visa petition. The field rewards deep expertise in areas like deep learning, probabilistic modeling, or optimization, making it one of the most accessible paths for researchers seeking US sponsorship. For detailed occupation requirements, see the O*NET profile.
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Get Access To All JobsLOCATION: Mountain View, California, United States
JOB TYPE: Full-time
ABOUT THE JOB
Waymo is an autonomous driving technology company with the mission to be the world's most trusted driver. Since its start as the Google Self-Driving Car Project in 2009, Waymo has focused on building the Waymo Driver—The World's Most Experienced Driver™—to improve access to mobility while saving thousands of lives now lost to traffic crashes. The Waymo Driver powers Waymo’s fully autonomous ride-hail service and can also be applied to a range of vehicle platforms and product use cases. The Waymo Driver has provided over ten million rider-only trips, enabled by its experience autonomously driving over 100 million miles on public roads and tens of billions in simulation across 15+ U.S. states.
Waymo's Compute Team is tasked with a critical and exciting mission: We deliver the compute platform responsible for running the fully autonomous vehicle’s software stack. To achieve our mission, we architect and create high-performance custom silicon; we develop system-level compute architectures that push the boundaries of performance, power, and latency; and we collaborate closely with many other teammates to ensure we design and optimize hardware and software for maximum performance. We are a multidisciplinary team seeking curious and talented teammates to work on one of the world’s highest performance automotive compute platforms.
This role follows a hybrid work schedule and you will report to the Senior Staff Silicon Engineer.
YOUR ROLE AND RESPONSIBILITIES
- Work with researchers and architects to translate high level requirements into hardware features
- Specify and design microarchitectures to deliver world class ML performance
- Perform power, area and performance exploration and optimization of digital designs
- Design high performance execution units, arithmetic circuits and programmable engines
- Work with verification teams to guarantee functional correctness and performance
BASIC QUALIFICATIONS
- BS degree in Computer Engineering or equivalent practical experience
- 5+ years of industry experience with SystemVerilog, RTL design and microarchitecture
- 3+ years designing and specifying microarchitectures of high performance computing cores (CPU/GPU/NPU)
- Fluency in at least one high level programming language such as Python, C++
PREFERRED QUALIFICATIONS
- Experience designing datapath elements of high performance cores (CPU/GPU/NPU)
- Experience working with Chisel (Scala) or other higher-level hardware DSLs
- Working knowledge of machine learning algorithms & how they map to hardware
- Familiarity with Synthesis and power analysis tools
- Experience working with formal tools for datapath verification
COMPENSATION
- Salary Range: $175,000—$215,000 USD
The expected base salary range for this full-time position across US locations is listed below. Actual starting pay will be based on job-related factors, including exact work location, experience, relevant training and education, and skill level. Your recruiter can share more about the specific salary range for the role location or, if the role can be performed remote, the specific salary range for your preferred location, during the hiring process.
Waymo employees are also eligible to participate in Waymo’s discretionary annual bonus program, equity incentive plan, and generous Company benefits program, subject to eligibility requirements.
LOCATION: Mountain View, California, United States
JOB TYPE: Full-time
ABOUT THE JOB
Waymo is an autonomous driving technology company with the mission to be the world's most trusted driver. Since its start as the Google Self-Driving Car Project in 2009, Waymo has focused on building the Waymo Driver—The World's Most Experienced Driver™—to improve access to mobility while saving thousands of lives now lost to traffic crashes. The Waymo Driver powers Waymo’s fully autonomous ride-hail service and can also be applied to a range of vehicle platforms and product use cases. The Waymo Driver has provided over ten million rider-only trips, enabled by its experience autonomously driving over 100 million miles on public roads and tens of billions in simulation across 15+ U.S. states.
Waymo's Compute Team is tasked with a critical and exciting mission: We deliver the compute platform responsible for running the fully autonomous vehicle’s software stack. To achieve our mission, we architect and create high-performance custom silicon; we develop system-level compute architectures that push the boundaries of performance, power, and latency; and we collaborate closely with many other teammates to ensure we design and optimize hardware and software for maximum performance. We are a multidisciplinary team seeking curious and talented teammates to work on one of the world’s highest performance automotive compute platforms.
This role follows a hybrid work schedule and you will report to the Senior Staff Silicon Engineer.
YOUR ROLE AND RESPONSIBILITIES
- Work with researchers and architects to translate high level requirements into hardware features
- Specify and design microarchitectures to deliver world class ML performance
- Perform power, area and performance exploration and optimization of digital designs
- Design high performance execution units, arithmetic circuits and programmable engines
- Work with verification teams to guarantee functional correctness and performance
BASIC QUALIFICATIONS
- BS degree in Computer Engineering or equivalent practical experience
- 5+ years of industry experience with SystemVerilog, RTL design and microarchitecture
- 3+ years designing and specifying microarchitectures of high performance computing cores (CPU/GPU/NPU)
- Fluency in at least one high level programming language such as Python, C++
PREFERRED QUALIFICATIONS
- Experience designing datapath elements of high performance cores (CPU/GPU/NPU)
- Experience working with Chisel (Scala) or other higher-level hardware DSLs
- Working knowledge of machine learning algorithms & how they map to hardware
- Familiarity with Synthesis and power analysis tools
- Experience working with formal tools for datapath verification
COMPENSATION
- Salary Range: $175,000—$215,000 USD
The expected base salary range for this full-time position across US locations is listed below. Actual starting pay will be based on job-related factors, including exact work location, experience, relevant training and education, and skill level. Your recruiter can share more about the specific salary range for the role location or, if the role can be performed remote, the specific salary range for your preferred location, during the hiring process.
Waymo employees are also eligible to participate in Waymo’s discretionary annual bonus program, equity incentive plan, and generous Company benefits program, subject to eligibility requirements.
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Get Access To All JobsTips for Finding Machine Learning Jobs
Leverage top-tier publications for an O-1 visa
Papers accepted at NeurIPS, ICML, ICLR, or CVPR carry significant weight in an O-1 extraordinary ability petition. Combine publications with citation counts, peer review invitations, and conference keynotes to build a compelling case.
Explore EB-2 NIW if you hold a PhD in ML
ML researchers with doctoral degrees can petition for an EB-2 National Interest Waiver without employer sponsorship. If your work has applications in healthcare, climate, defense, or other areas of national importance, NIW may be a viable green card path.
Target industries beyond big tech
ML talent is in demand in quantitative finance (Two Sigma, Citadel, DE Shaw), pharmaceuticals (Pfizer, Genentech), and autonomous vehicles (Waymo). These industries sponsor aggressively and often pay competitively with major tech companies.
Use cap-exempt positions at national labs
Sandia, Los Alamos, and Oak Ridge National Laboratories run active ML research programs with H-1B cap-exempt positions. No lottery required, and you can file any time of year while working on cutting-edge problems.
Build a strong STEM OPT runway
CS, mathematics, and statistics degrees qualify for STEM OPT - up to 3 years of work authorization. Use that time to publish, contribute to production ML systems, and establish the track record that makes your employer invest in long-term sponsorship.
Highlight your engineering skills alongside research
Employers sponsoring ML roles want candidates who can move models from notebooks to production. Proficiency in PyTorch, distributed training, and ML infrastructure makes you more valuable and strengthens the case for a technical specialty occupation.
Frequently Asked Questions
How important is a publication record for getting sponsored in a machine learning role?
Publications are highly important for research-focused ML roles at organizations like Google DeepMind, Meta FAIR, or university labs. For H-1B visa purposes, they demonstrate specialized knowledge at the level expected of a degree holder. For O-1 visa petitions, publications are one of the core criteria for extraordinary ability. Applied ML roles at companies focused on deploying existing techniques may prioritize engineering skills over publications, so the importance depends on whether the role is research or production-oriented.
Can I transition from academia to an industry ML role in the U.S., and will employers sponsor that transition?
Yes. The academic-to-industry transition is one of the most well-established paths in machine learning. Companies like Google, Meta, Microsoft, and Amazon have research scientist roles specifically designed for people with academic backgrounds and routinely sponsor H-1B and O-1 visas for these hires. If you are currently a postdoc or researcher at a U.S. university, you may already have J-1 visa or H-1B status that can be transferred to an industry employer. Connect your academic work to practical applications during interviews to show awareness of production constraints.
How to find Machine Learning jobs with visa sponsorship?
To find Machine Learning jobs with visa sponsorship, use Migrate Mate, which specializes in connecting international talent with sponsoring employers. Focus on tech companies, startups, and research institutions that commonly sponsor H-1B, O-1, or TN visas for ML engineers, data scientists, and AI researchers. These employers actively seek skilled professionals in machine learning, deep learning, and artificial intelligence roles.
Does the O-1 visa work well for ML researchers?
Yes, the O-1A is one of the strongest visa pathways for ML researchers with solid track records. Published papers at top venues (NeurIPS, ICML, ICLR, CVPR), peer review service for journals and conferences, high citation counts, and significant open-source contributions can all serve as evidence of extraordinary ability. The O-1 has no annual cap and no lottery, and it can be processed in 15 business days with premium processing. Many top AI labs actively support O-1 applications for research hires.
Which ML specializations are most in demand for visa sponsorship?
Large language models, reinforcement learning, and computer vision remain the highest-demand specializations. Emerging areas like geometric deep learning, causal ML, and efficient model architectures are particularly valuable for immigration purposes because the talent pool is extremely small. USCIS evaluates whether the role requires someone with your specific expertise, and niche specializations make that argument easier. Applied specializations like recommendation systems, search ranking, and fraud detection are also heavily sponsored.
Do open-source contributions to ML libraries help with visa petitions?
Yes, particularly for O-1 petitions where they can serve as evidence of original contributions of major significance to the field. Contributions to widely used frameworks like PyTorch, TensorFlow, Hugging Face Transformers, or scikit-learn carry the most weight. Document your contributions with metrics: download counts, GitHub stars, citations in papers, and adoption by major companies. For H-1B petitions, open-source work is less directly relevant but helps demonstrate the specialized depth of your expertise.
What is the prevailing wage requirement for sponsored Machine Learning jobs?
When a U.S. employer sponsors a foreign worker for a work visa, they are legally required to pay at least the "prevailing wage", the average wage paid to workers in the same occupation, in the same geographic area, with similar experience. This is set by the Department of Labor to prevent employers from hiring foreign workers at below-market rates. The prevailing wage varies significantly by role, location, and experience level. For example, a machine learning in California will have a different prevailing wage than the same role in a smaller state. You can look up current prevailing wage rates for any occupation and location using the OFLC Wage Search Page.