Senior Research Engineer - Experimental Engineering

Yonkers, NY

Consumer Reports is an independent, nonprofit organization dedicated to a fair and just marketplace for all. CR is known for our rigorous testing and trusted ratings on thousands of products and services. We report extensively on consumer trends and challenges, and survey millions of people in the U.S. each year. We leverage our evidence‑based approach to advocate for consumer rights, working with policymakers and companies to find solutions for safer products and fair practices.

The Experimental Engineering team leads the engineering R&D efforts in new and emerging products at Consumer Reports.

We're seeking a highly capable Senior Research Engineer to join our team and drive forward exploratory research engineering with particular focus on innovative applications of AI, machine learning, and emerging technologies. In this role, you’ll embark on ambitious early‑stage engineering efforts, validate concepts through rapid prototypes, and translate timely experiments into actionable insights that guide Consumer Reports' strategic initiatives. Research engineers operate 6+ months ahead of product roadmaps.

Your work will be essential to identifying opportunities and pushing our technological boundaries.

This is a full‑time remote opportunity, with hybrid work available for candidates local to Consumer Reports offices in New York or Washington, D.C. This position is not eligible for sponsorship or relocation assistance.

Consumer Reports’ Experimental Engineering team is dedicated to rapidly exploring and prototyping solutions that empower consumers. As a Sr. Research Engineer on our team, you will:

• Lead exploratory spikes, proof‑of‑concept projects, and early‑stage prototyping end‑to‑end to test high‑impact, forward‑looking ideas.
• Identify strategic opportunities in emerging technologies (notably AI/ML) and translate these opportunities into actionable prototypes.
• Serve as a technical leader on AskCR, our RAG chatbot built on Consumer Reports' product testing, journalism, and advocacy work, and own architectural decisions on retrieval, evaluation, and orchestration.
• Collaborate closely on technical planning, architecture, and implementation efforts for AskCR, our RAG chatbot built on Consumer Report’s product testing, journalism and advocacy work.
• Work collaboratively across cross‑functional teams (Digital Product, Product Testing, User Research, Data Engineering, Advocacy) to share insights and ensure learnings are leveraged broadly across Consumer Reports.
• Establish and refine practices for documenting experiments and synthesizing research outputs to maximize their organizational impact.
• Mentor engineers and raise the technical bar across the team.
• Cultivate a culture of curiosity, experimentation, rapid learning, and discovery.

• You have deep experience as a full‑stack software engineer, with additional depth and interest in applied research, particularly within AI/ML domains.
• You are a problem solver. You can take a vague problem and return with a crisp framing, a plan, and a working prototype without needing the path defined for you.
• You are motivated by entrepreneurial challenges, comfortable navigating ambiguity, and experienced in rapidly iterating early ideas to test feasibility and viability.
• You’re comfortable being a senior voice on the team and making calls on technical direction, pushing back when something isn’t worth building, and knowing when to kill a project.
• You effectively communicate experimental findings and engineering insights clearly and enthusiastically to both technical and non‑technical stakeholders.
• You understand the balance between near‑term product delivery and longer‑term investment in innovation, and are capable of operating effectively in early phases of product development (spike → proof‑of‑concept → early prototype).
• You have practical understanding or curiosity regarding consumer rights, consumer advocacy, product ethics, and how responsible AI can empower individuals.

• You have the experience. 7+ years of professional software engineering experience; a Swiss…