Staff Applied Scientist at Quilter – AI & HPC Career in Columbus
Career & Market Insight
This Senior/Staff Applied Scientist or Software Engineer role at Quilter sits at a rare intersection of AI/ML, computational geometry, and hardware-adjacent engineering — a niche that commands top-of-market compensation. Staff-level applied scientist roles at well-funded US startups typically range from $180K–$280K+ in total cash, plus meaningful equity at a Series B company with real growth potential.
Skills You'll Build:
- Deep expertise in GPU optimization, HPC, and physics simulation — skills in extremely high demand across AI infrastructure, robotics, and semiconductor sectors.
- Applied ML in a physical/engineering domain (EDA/CAD), which is a growing and underhired niche.
- Technical leadership: roadmap ownership, mentorship, and hiring — career accelerators toward principal or director-level roles.
Green Flags: $25M Series B with strong investors signals financial stability for a startup. Small team means high individual impact and visibility. The problem domain (automated PCB design) is genuinely hard and underpenetrated by AI — meaningful frontier work.
Things to Probe: "Unlimited PTO" at a high-intensity deep-tech startup can vary widely in practice — ask about average team utilization. The broad scope (Python, C++, Mojo, TypeScript, ML, physics) suggests engineers wear many hats; ideal if you like variety, challenging if you prefer deep specialization.
Overall, this is a strong opportunity for a technically elite engineer who wants to do frontier research with real-world impact and build career capital in a fast-growing AI/hardware niche.
About Quilter
At Quilter, we are helping electrical engineers save time and accomplish more by automating the tedious and time-consuming task of designing printed circuit boards (PCBs). Our small team is composed of experts in electrical engineering, electromagnetic simulation, ML/AI, and high-performance computing (HPC). We are inventing and leveraging novel techniques to solve the decades-old problem of automating circuit board design where today hundreds of billions of dollars are spent. We have raised $25 million in Series B funding from some of the very best and are charging full-speed toward our goal.
No matter where we come from, we're united by a common vision for the future and a core set of values we think will get us there:
- Curiosity
- Conviction
- Rigor
Quilter is looking for Senior to Staff Applied Scientists and Software Engineers to help invent the next generation of automated PCB design. You'll design, implement and test state-of-the-art algorithms for some of the hardest problems in computational geometry, optimization, high-performance computing and physics simulation. As a senior member of the team, you'll help shape the technical roadmap, mentor your peers and build the foundation for superhuman PCB design.
You'll work on one or more parts of the system, such as core learning algorithms, differential geometry techniques, state-of-the-art optimization methods, CPU and GPU backend performance, and fast physics simulation.
What You'll Do
- Drive applied research toward the next breakthrough in PCB design.
- Architect, implement and test high-performance libraries in Python, C++, Mojo, TypeScript, etc.
- Lead by example: mentor engineers, give technical reviews and help raise the team's engineering practices.
What We're Looking For
- 3 to 10+ years of industry experience maintaining and extending large, high-performance codebases in collaborative environments.
- A strong academic background in applied mathematics, with deep expertise in one or more of: optimization, machine learning, computational geometry, graph theory, high-performance computing (HPC), meshing, numerical methods, physics simulation, or a related field.
- Proficiency in Python for prototyping and for integrating with ML systems.
- Strong leadership skills: ownership, hiring and mentoring, sound decision-making and clear communication.
Nice to Have
- An advanced degree (M.Sc. or Ph.D.) in computer science, computational physics, robotics or a related field.
- Expertise in GPU optimization and parallel or distributed algorithms.
- Experience with reinforcement learning, CAD/EDA tools or physics-based optimization.
- Contributions to open-source geometry, simulation or HPC projects.
- Knowledge of physics engines, finite element methods (FEM) or distributed computing.
Please note: We are an equal opportunity employer. At this time, we are focused on hiring primarily within the US, with occasional exception to accommodate exceptional talent.
What We Offer
- Interesting and challenging work
- Competitive salary and equity benefits
- Health, dental, and vision insurance
- Regular team events and offsites (~4x / year)
- Unlimited paid time off
- Paid parental leave
Want to learn more about Quilter, our vision, and our investors? Visit our About page and visit our Blog.
Frequently Asked Questions
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