Physics AI Scientist III

About the role

Applied Materials is hiring a Physics AI Scientist III in Santa Clara, CA, to develop next-generation AI models for semiconductor engineering. The role combines scientific domain knowledge with modern machine learning to build physics-aware surrogate models, foundation models and optimization workflows that speed up simulation and engineering design.

Key responsibilities

• Develop scientific AI models that bridge scientific computing, physics-based simulation and machine learning for physics and chemistry-based engineering problems.
• Design and train surrogate models, operator-learning models and foundation models for scientific simulations.
• Collaborate with domain experts to formulate AI solutions for complex engineering challenges.
• Build scalable data generation, training, validation and deployment workflows for scientific AI models.
• Publish technical innovations and promote adoption of scientific AI across engineering applications.

Required profile

• Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering, Chemical Engineering, Materials Science, Physics, Applied Mathematics, Computer Science or a related field.
• Experience applying machine learning to real-world scientific or engineering problems.
• Strong background in scientific machine learning and numerical simulation.
• Experience with surrogate modeling, PINNs, operator learning (e.g., FNO) or foundation models.

Required skills

• Proficiency in Python and PyTorch.
• Experience with HPC, distributed training, large-scale scientific datasets or scalable ML workflows.

What we offer

• Salary of $142,500 to $196,500, depending on location, hire grade, knowledge, skills, experience and internal equity.
• Comprehensive benefits package, with possible eligibility for a bonus and stock award program.
• Full-time position with travel of about 10% of the time; relocation eligible.