AI Researcher - AI/Machine Learning Researcher

Job Description

The Role:  

Conduct original research and develop practical AI/ML methods that accelerate GM’s research, engineering, and product development capabilities. This role is intended for a recent or soon-to-be-completed Ph.D. who brings strong depth in one or more advanced AI areas and the ability to work across disciplines. The researcher will develop proof-of-concepts (POCs), evaluate them on meaningful engineering or scientific problems, communicate findings clearly, and collaborate with senior researchers and engineering partners to move promising ideas toward impact.

The Team:  

GM R&D is seeking an outstanding early-career researcher to contribute to advanced work in Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, and Large Language Models. The role is designed for a fresh Ph.D. It emphasizes research depth, originality, experimental rigor, and growth toward independent technical leadership. The successful candidate will work with senior researchers, technical fellows, and engineering collaborators to formulate important problems, develop new methods, build research prototypes, and validate results. The work may span causal reasoning, neurosymbolic AI, world models, multimodal and generative AI, engineering agents, or related areas. The researcher will be expected to connect theory and experimentation with real engineering needs while maintaining high standards for reproducibility, explainability, uncertainty awareness, and responsible AI.

What You’ll Do:    

• Conduct original research in one or more advanced AI areas such as causal AI, neurosymbolic AI, world models, multimodal or generative AI or engineering agents.

• Translate engineering and scientific challenges into well-defined research questions, hypotheses, algorithms, and experimental plans.

• Design, implement, and evaluate machine learning models and proof-of-concepts using real, simulated, experimental, or engineering data.

• Develop methods that can reason about physical systems, causal relationships, uncertainty, constraints, temporal evolution, or complex interactions among components.

• Establish meaningful baselines and evaluation protocols; analyze failure modes, robustness, generalization, interpretability, and uncertainty rather than relying only on headline accuracy.

• Build reproducible research code, data-processing workflows, and experiment pipelines using modern deep learning practices.

• Collaborate with GM R&D researchers and engineering partners to understand domain constraints, validate research results, and identify pathways from POCs to practical use.

• Communicate technical findings through research reports, presentations, publications, invention disclosures, demonstrations, and clear documentation.

• Contribute to technical discussions and research roadmaps by identifying promising approaches, important risks, and high-value experiments.

• Participate in a collaborative research culture that values intellectual curiosity, constructive peer review, responsible innovation, and continuous learning.

More About Who You Are

• A curious and intellectually rigorous researcher who enjoys working on difficult, open-ended problems.

• Deeply grounded in at least one technical area, while eager to learn and collaborate across adjacent AI, computational science, and engineering disciplines.

• Motivated by research that can create measurable value in real-world engineering workflows, not only benchmark performance.

• Comfortable moving between mathematical formulation, algorithm development, software implementation, and empirical validation.

• Able to explain complex ideas, assumptions, limitations, and results to both technical and general audiences.

• Independent in driving research tasks to completion while actively seeking feedback and working effectively with senior mentors and cross-functional teams.

• Committed to careful experimentation, reproducibility, safety, explainability, and responsible use of AI.

Required Qualifications:     

• Pursuit or Completion of a PhD in one of the following areas: Computer Science, Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, Applied Mathematics, Statistics, Computational Science, Engineering, Physics, or a related field
• Able to work fulltime, 40 hours per week

• Demonstrated research depth in at least one relevant area, supported by a dissertation, publications, patents, open-source work, research software, or comparable technical contributions.
• Strong foundations in machine learning and deep learning, with working knowledge of optimization, probability/statistics, numerical methods, or scientific computing as appropriate to the research area.
• Experience developing and evaluating models in Python and frameworks such as PyTorch, JAX, TensorFlow, or comparable tools.
• Ability to formulate experiments, select appropriate metrics and baselines, analyze results, and communicate technical conclusions with appropriate caveats.
• Strong verbal and written communication skills and the ability to collaborate effectively with researchers, engineers, and technical stakeholders.
• Ability to work on-site or in a hybrid research environment in accordance with GM work practices and project needs.

Preferred Qualifications): 

• Research experience in causal inference, counterfactual reasoning, neurosymbolic methods and world models for engineering applications.
• Experience with multimodal AI, large language models, agentic systems, retrieval and reasoning, or AI-assisted engineering and software development.
• Evidence of research impact through high-quality publications, patents, invention disclosures, open-source contributions, awards, or successful technology demonstrations.
• Research or internship experience in automotive, mobility, aerospace, industrial, energy, defense, national laboratory, or university-industry collaboration settings.

GM does not provide immigration-related sponsorship for this role. Do not apply for this role if you will need GM immigration sponsorship now or in the future. This includes direct company sponsorship, entry of GM as the immigration employer of record on a government form, and any work authorization requiring a written submission or other immigration support from the company (e.g., H1-B, OPT, STEM OPT, CPT, TN, J-1, etc).

The position is subject to export control restrictions and requires the successful candidate to be a U.S. Person (U.S. citizen, U.S. permanent resident, asylee or refugee).

Work Arrangement: 

Hybrid: This role is categorized as hybrid. This means the successful candidate is expected to report to Mountain View, CA three times per week, at minimum [or other frequency dictated by the business]. 

 To help facilitate administration of relocation benefits if you are selected, please apply using the permanent address you would move from. 

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 actual base salary a successful candidate will be offered within this range will vary based on factors relevant to the position, as well as geography of the selected candidate.

The salary range for this role is $128,000-$279,000. 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, life insurance, paid vacation and holidays, tuition assistance programs, employee assistance program, and GM vehicle discounts, among others.

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

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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

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