Thermodynamic Hardware Residency (AI)

Location: On-site in New York City or Silicon Valley, United States

Salary: $150K annually

Company

Applied AI company developing foundational hardware and software for the semiconductor industry, AI infrastructure, and advanced computing systems.

What you will do

• Design, simulate, characterize, and evaluate thermodynamic computing hardware using noise, analog dynamics, and in-memory computation.
• Develop numerical methods and algorithms for stochastic analog computing substrates.
• Define and conduct an original technical investigation spanning device physics, circuits, architectures, algorithms, or workloads.
• Build evaluation frameworks and benchmarks for hardware and simulation experiments.
• Co-author a research paper and present findings at the company-wide residency colloquium.
• Work directly with researchers, hardware engineers, founders, and senior technical staff in a fast-moving startup environment.

Requirements

• Currently pursuing or recently completed an MS, PhD, or equivalent research experience in physics, electrical engineering, computer engineering, computer science, applied mathematics, or a related field.
• Focus on hardware, device physics, stochastic or analog computing, or machine learning systems.
• Ability to move between physical noise and analog devices, circuit and architecture trade-offs, and algorithms and workloads.
• Familiarity with large-model inference concepts such as attention mechanisms, KV caching, and long-context decoding.
• Strong Python skills and comfort with, or willingness to learn, C++ or Rust.
• Experience with simulation, experimentation, hardware characterization, research writing, or technical presentations is valuable.

Nice to have

• Hands-on experience with SPICE, PyTorch, FPGA, or ASIC tooling.
• Experience writing papers, theses, or technical reports.
• Experience presenting technical work to a live audience.

Culture & Benefits

• Dedicated research mentorship throughout the residency.
• Hands-on exposure to unconventional computing hardware and real silicon development.
• Opportunity to work in a lean, well-funded hardware startup with rapid decision-making.
• Exceptional performers may be considered for full-time conversion after the residency.
• Inclusive workplace committed to equal employment opportunity and reasonable accessibility accommodations.