AI Research and Development Engineer

Position Overview

We are seeking talented and motivated AI Research and Development Engineers to join our team at ASML working at the intersection of advanced artificial intelligence and semiconductor inspection technologies.

The primary requirement for this position is hands-on experience training or fine-tuning LLMs and/or VLMs across the end-to-end model development lifecycle including data preparation model adaptation training evaluation performance optimization and deployment or inference.

This research-focused role involves developing advanced LLM/VLM capabilities and translating research concepts into functional prototypes for real-world engineering applications. Experience developing Agentic AI systems is strongly preferred and will be considered an important differentiator. Semiconductor inspection or SEM experience is beneficial but not required as domain knowledge can be developed through collaboration with internal experts.

Key Responsibilities

• Own end-to-end LLM/VLM development workflows including data curation and preprocessing model selection training or fine-tuning evaluation inference optimization deployment and iterative improvement.
• Design and execute model adaptation strategies such as supervised fine-tuning instruction tuning parameter-efficient fine-tuning preference optimization and continued pretraining as appropriate for the use case.
• Build and maintain high-quality training and evaluation datasets including data cleaning labeling strategies synthetic-data generation quality checks and contamination controls.
• Establish rigorous evaluation and benchmarking frameworks covering model quality task performance robustness hallucination safety latency throughput and cost.
• Develop innovative Agentic AI solutions that integrate trained or tuned models with tools planning memory and workflow orchestration.
• Apply advanced LLM VLM multimodal AI machine learning and deep learning techniques to semiconductor inspection and other complex engineering applications.
• Collaborate with cross-functional teams and customers to identify research opportunities translate engineering requirements into model-development objectives and validate emerging technologies.
• Support the transition of validated AI research and prototypes into reusable platforms and potential product applications.

Required Qualifications

• Masters or PhD degree in Computer Science Artificial Intelligence Machine Learning Electrical Engineering or a related field; equivalent practical experience may also be considered.
• Demonstrated hands-on experience training or fine-tuning LLMs and/or VLMs end to end with direct ownership of data preparation training execution evaluation performance optimization and deployment or inference.
  • Practical experience with modern deep-learning frameworks and model-development tooling especially Python and PyTorch.
  • Strong understanding of transformer-based models tokenization optimization training dynamics evaluation methods and common model failure modes.
• Experience working with distributed training or multi-GPU environments and diagnosing training issues such as instability overfitting data-quality problems and performance regressions.
• Ability to design meaningful experiments interpret results and make evidence-based trade-offs across model architecture training data model quality compute requirements latency and cost.
• Strong programming skills with the ability to independently design implement test and evaluate AI algorithms and prototypes.
• Excellent analytical thinking independent problem-solving and technical reasoning skills.
• Strong teamwork adaptability and ability to thrive in a fast-paced research and development environment.
• Excellent communication and presentation skills with the ability to clearly articulate complex technical concepts and research findings.

Candidates will be evaluated primarily on demonstrated end-to-end LLM/VLM training and tuning accomplishments technical depth and research capabilities rather than years of professional experience. Experience limited to prompt engineering RAG implementation or hosted-model API integration alone does not satisfy the primary model-training requirement.

Preferred Qualifications

• Strongly preferred: Experience developing Agentic AI systems including tool-using agents planning memory multi-agent systems agent orchestration and intelligent workflows.
• Experience with LLM/VLM adaptation and alignment techniques such as LoRA or QLoRA supervised fine-tuning preference optimization reinforcement learning or related methods.
• Experience with LLM/VLM data pipelines synthetic-data generation experiment tracking model registries distributed training optimized inference quantization or model serving.
• Experience evaluating LLM/VLM systems for factuality robustness safety latency throughput and cost in real application workflows.
• Additional plus: Knowledge of semiconductor manufacturing voltage-contrast inspection scanning electron microscopy e-beam inspection or defect analysis. Prior SEM experience is not required.

Why Join Us

• Cutting-edge innovation: Train tune and evaluate next-generation LLM/VLM technologies for advanced engineering applications.
• Research with real-world impact: Develop model capabilities and Agentic AI solutions with opportunities to influence future products.
• End-to-end ownership: Work across data preparation model training evaluation optimization deployment and application integration.
• Dynamic and collaborative environment: Enjoy the agility and innovative spirit of a startup-like team within a global technology leader.
• Professional growth: Work on challenging multidisciplinary problems and continuously expand your technical expertise.

Travel Requirements

• Business travel may be required as needed.

The current base annual salary range for this role is currently:

Pay scales are determined by role level location and alignment with market data. Individual pay is determined through interviews and an assessment of several factors that that are unique to each candidate including but not limited to job-related skills relevant education and experience certifications abilities of the candidate and pay relative to other team members.

The Company offers employees and their families medical dental vision and basic life insurance. Employees are able to participate in the Companys 401k plan. Employees will also receive eight (8) hours of vacation leave every month and (13) paid holidays throughout the calendar year. For more information please contact the Recruiter or click on this link Compensation & Benefits in the US.

All new ASML jobs have a minimum application deadline of 10 days.

ASML is an Equal Opportunity Employer that values and respects the importance of a diverse and inclusive workforce. It is the policy of the company to recruit hire train and promote persons in all job titles without regard to race color religion sex age national origin veteran status disability sexual orientation or gender identity. We recognize that inclusion and diversity is a driving force in the success of our company.

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