Research Principal AI Software Engineer

Overview

Waters Global Research department is looking for an energetic and creative AI engineer to join the team and help bring technologies in analytical instrumentation to the forefront of the industry. The new hire will contribute to the next generation of innovations in automated instrumentation workflows and expert AI user assistance.

The Waters Global Research team performs early, cutting-edge research on novel chromatography and mass spectrometry systems that have a direct impact on laboratory testing, drug discovery and development and food safety. The role of this Principal AI engineer will be to develop and implement generative AI solutions, including agentic AI systems and retrieval-augmented generation (RAG), train and fine-tune LLMs and traditional ML classification and prediction models, and deploy these solutions in the cloud. The principal engineer will also be responsible for assisting with the development of data pipelines for specialty instrument data, and experimenting with new data and algorithmic features to maximize the efficiency and efficacy of the results from our analytical instrumentation.

This position follows a hybrid work model, with three days a week (Tuesday to Thursday) working from the GCC office at RMZ Ecoworld, Bellandur, Bangalore, and the remaining two days working remotely.

Responsibilities

• Ideate and experiment with LLM and ML approaches for innovating new proofs of concept, generate metrics, and evaluate results

• Design and build agentic AI solutions, including multi-step workflows with tool use and orchestration

• Develop RAG pipelines over scientific and instrument data, covering document ingestion, embeddings, vector search, and retrieval evaluation

• Deploy, monitor, and maintain agentic AI solutions in the cloud (AWS)

• Build and maintain REST APIs that expose models and agents to internal and instrument software

• Work as technical lead on selected generative AI research projects and company initiatives

• Work with subject matter experts (SMEs) to evaluate model use cases and performance, and present results to stakeholders, demonstrating the value of the AI techniques in new product concepts

• Use object-oriented programming best practices to maintain codebases and write unit tests

• Contribute to the preparation of technical reports, patent applications, and transferable protocols

• Contribute to the construction and maintenance of AWS data pipelines

• Maintain up-to-date knowledge of advances in machine learning and AI and apply it to new project ideas and approaches

Qualifications

• Master's degree in computer science, data science or related field and at least 8 years’ relevant work experience, or a PhD and at least 5 years of experience

• Experience in model development using Python for Generative AI, machine learning, statistical, and/or mechanistic models

• At least 2 years’ experience serving as a technical lead on a research or development project team

• Hands-on experience training models, including data preparation, experiment tracking, hyperparameter tuning, and evaluation

• Experience deploying AI solutions in the cloud, preferably AWS (e.g., Bedrock, SageMaker, Lambda, ECS/EKS), including containerization with Docker

• Experience in implementing and evolving new modeling techniques and best practices from papers, textbooks, and other technical documentation

• Robust programming skills in Python (e.g., PyTorch , Hugging Face Transformers, LangChain, Tensorflow, numpy, pandas or pySpark, scipy, scikit-learn, etc)

• Able to communicate results using meaningful metrics and visualizations to managers and stakeholders and receive feedback

• Comfortable with Git version control, BASH, or command prompt

• Desired (considered a plus) Qualifications:

• Experience training and fine-tuning LLMs on domain-specific data, and benchmark them against baseline models

• Knowledge of an object-oriented or functional programming language, such as Java, C#, or Scala is desirable

• Experience working in life sciences domain and collaborating with SMEs

• We know that sometimes the perfect candidate does not exist, and that people can be put off applying for a job if they do not fit all the requirements. If you are excited about working for us and have most of the skills or experience we are looking for, please go ahead and apply. You could be just what we need! We believe strongly in the value of diversity and creating supportive, inclusive environments where our colleagues can succeed. As such, Waters is proud to be an Equal Opportunity Employer and is committed to maintaining a diverse and inclusive work environment.

Company Description

Waters Corporation (NYSE:WAT) is a global leader in life sciences and diagnostics, dedicated to accelerating the benefits of pioneering science through analytical technologies, informatics, and service. With a focus on regulated, high-volume testing environments, our innovative portfolio harnesses deep scientific expertise across chemistry, physics, and biology. We collaborate with customers around the world to advance the release of effective, high-quality medicines, ensure the safety of food and water, and drive better patient outcomes by detecting diseases earlier, managing routine infections, and combating antibiotic resistance. Through a shared culture of relentless innovation, our passionate team of ~16,000 colleagues turn scientific challenges into breakthroughs that improve lives worldwide.

Diversity and inclusion are fundamental to our core values at Waters Corporation. It benefits our employees, our products, our customers and our community. Waters complies with all applicable federal, state, and local laws. Qualified applicants are considered without regard to sex, race, color, ancestry, national origin, citizenship status, religion, age, marital status (including civil unions), military service, veteran status, pregnancy (including childbirth and related medical conditions), genetic information, sexual orientation, gender identity, legally recognized disability, domestic violence victim status, or any other characteristic protected by law. Waters is proud to be an equal opportunity workplace and is an affirmative action employer. All hiring decisions are based solely on qualifications, merit, and business needs at the time.