Director, AI Research - Recursive Self-Improvement

WHAT YOU DO AT AMD CHANGES EVERYTHING

At AMD, our mission is to build great products that accelerate next-generation computing experiences-from AI and data centers, to PCs, gaming and embedded systems. Grounded in a culture of innovation and collaboration, we believe real progress comes from bold ideas, human ingenuity and a shared passion to create something extraordinary. When you join AMD, you'll discover the real differentiator is our culture.

We push the limits of innovation to solve the world's most important challenges-striving for execution excellence, while being direct, humble, collaborative, and inclusive of diverse perspectives. Join us as we shape the future of AI and beyond.

AMD is looking for a Director of AI Research to lead AMD's recursive self-improvement (RSI) agenda: using AI and reinforcement learning in particular to make AMD's hardware design, kernel and compiler optimization, and engineering workflows measurably better, then feeding those gains back into the loop.

At AMD, our mission is to build great products that accelerate next-generation computing experiences-from AI and data centers, to PCs, gaming and embedded systems. Grounded in a culture of innovation and collaboration, we believe real progress comes from bold ideas, human ingenuity and a shared passion to create something extraordinary. When you join AMD, you'll discover the real differentiator is our culture.

We push the limits of innovation to solve the world’s most important challenges-striving for execution excellence, while being direct, humble, collaborative, and inclusive of diverse perspectives. Join us as we shape the future of AI and beyond.

AMD is looking for a Director of AI Research to lead AMD's recursive self-improvement (RSI) agenda: using AI and reinforcement learning in particular to make AMD's hardware design, kernel and compiler optimization, and engineering workflows measurably better, then feeding those gains back into the loop.

This is a deeply technical leadership role aimed squarely inside AMD. You will build and lead a research team, set the technical direction for the RSI flywheel, and partner across silicon, software, compiler, and engineering-productivity teams to turn research into compounding internal advantage. The ideal candidate is a recognized AI researcher who can go deep on RL training and systems and has strong opinions about what makes self-improving loops actually work (and where they break).

We are open to candidates who want to remain hands-on as player-coaches as well as those who lead primarily through their teams.

• Define and own AMD's internal recursive self-improvement research agenda where AI improves AMD's hardware, kernels, compilers, and engineering workflows, and how those gains compound over time
• Build, lead, and mentor a high-caliber team of AI researchers and research engineers; set research direction, hiring bar, and standards for technical rigor
• Drive RL-based research on concrete internal targets kernel and PPA optimization, design-space exploration, and code/workflow generation grounded in measurable, verifiable improvement
• Design and own the verification and evaluation infrastructure (fast simulators, "slice" verifiers, benchmarks) needed to run self-improvement loops safely and trust their results
• Confront the hard failure modes of self-improving systems directly reward hacking, evaluation gaming, and reward-signal scaling and build research programs to detect and mitigate them
• Partner deeply with silicon, architecture, compiler, and engineering-productivity teams to embed research into real AMD…