Senior AI/Machine Learning Specialist

3M•Maplewood, MN

3d•$188,251 - $230,084•Onsite

About The Position

Choosing where to start and grow your career has a major impact on your professional and personal life, so it’s equally important you know that the company that you choose to work at, and its leaders, will support and guide you. With a variety of people, global locations, technologies and products, 3M is a place where you can collaborate with other curious, creative 3Mers. This position provides an opportunity to transition from other private, public, government or military experience to a 3M career. As a Senior AI Software Developer, you will join an internal incubator building a new-to-the-world AI architecture and a new technical category. You will be a hands-on senior individual contributor, technical lead, and software architect who turns Python research implementations into scalable, production-grade systems. Working closely with distinguished researchers and senior engineers/architects, you will shape the Rust architecture, make concurrency and parallelization decisions, and personally build critical components. This role is designed for an architect who codes, tests, profiles, and delivers.

Requirements

Bachelor's degree or higher in computer science, computer engineering, applied mathematics, physics, cognitive science, computational neuroscience, or a related field (completed and verified prior to start) OR High School Diploma/GED (completed and verified prior to start) AND five years of experience building, scaling, or productionizing complex software, research systems, simulation platforms, compilers, high-performance computing applications, or algorithm-intensive technology.
Ten (10) years of professional software-development experience building production systems.
Five (5) years of experience productionizing research, scientific, simulation, compiler, high-performance computing, or algorithm-intensive software.
Must be legally authorized to work in country of employment without sponsorship for employment visa status (e.g., H1B status).

Nice To Haves

Demonstrated production experience with Rust, or substantial C++ experience at scale with demonstrated ability and commitment to develop in Rust.
Strong Python skills and experience translating Python algorithms or prototypes into production software.
Exposure to symbolic AI, neural-symbolic systems, cognitive architectures, causal reasoning, analogical reasoning, reinforcement learning, constraint solving, or simulation systems.
Experience designing concurrent, parallel, performance-sensitive, or distributed systems, including machine learning and reinforcement learning environments.
Experience creating automated tests and benchmarks for correctness, behavioral fidelity, determinism, reproducibility, reliability, and performance.
Ability to understand unfamiliar algorithms, reason mathematically, collaborate effectively with researchers, and make sound tradeoffs between algorithm changes and reference fidelity.
A collaborative, low-ego working style and sound judgment when handling confidential or access-controlled intellectual property.
Experience working with Agile Scrum methodologies.

Responsibilities

Leading the transition of experimental Python research code into reliable, maintainable, and high-performance Rust components.
Architecting and implementing scalable runtime components for real-time inference, near-real-time reasoning, large offline simulations, cloud services, on-premises deployments, and embedded or edge environments.
Evaluating and driving decisions for concurrency, parallel execution, memory management, inter-process communication, and distributed processing.
Working directly with researchers on mathematical representations, activation dynamics, mapping, retrieval, learning mechanisms, and causal structures within clearly defined system components.
Establishing behavioral-equivalence, determinism, reproducibility, regression, simulation, performance, and reliability testing between research and production implementations.
Profiling CPU, memory, latency, throughput, and scaling behavior; identifying bottlenecks and implementing measurable improvements.
Defining stable interfaces in a modular, interface-driven architecture that protects proprietary intellectual property while enabling teams to build, test, and optimize clearly defined subsystems.
Building observability, CI/CD, containerization, deployment, and operational capabilities for Cloud and on-premises environments.
Mentoring early-career developers and modeling low-ego, hands-on technical leadership across research and engineering teams.
Contributing to inventions, patents, and managed publication or conference activities consistent with program requirements.
Responsibilities of this position include that corporate policies, procedures and security standards are complied with while performing assigned duties.
Safety is a core value at 3M. All employees are expected to contribute to a strong Environmental Health and Safety (EHS) culture by following safety policies, identifying hazards, and engaging in continuous improvement.