Physics Applications - Researcher (Senior)
IT
Palo Alto, CA, USA
The Mission
At Vinci, we are building the operator intelligence infrastructure that modern hardware programs rely on daily. We have already proven that a single foundation model works out of the box across physics on realistic production workloads.
Trained on PetaBytes of structured physics data
Running billion-voxel inference in production
Tier-1 semiconductor and hardware customers
Operating across multiple physical scales and operator regimes
We are scaling deployment at industrial magnitude:
Increase simulation throughput by two orders of magnitude
Expand simulation capabilities to maximize utility and domain coverage
Support global, multi-entity deployment across Tier-1 ecosystems
Our ambition is to become the default operator intelligence layer that hardware companies run on
Solving Across Space and Time
Our proven unified model architecture allows users to rapidly obtain steady state solutions of various partial differential equations. We are expanding this capability into the transient domain, modeling interactions, deformation and dynamics. These are promising applications where Vinci’s approach can not only reduce the compute load but also achieve greater accuracy.
What You Will Do
Your north star will be production and delivering value to our customers.
In this role you will leverage the Vinci framework to work on a variety of novel applications. Experiment with temporal propagation schemas, both in the classical and learned sense. You will use pre-existing data generation infrastructure to generate and curate training and verification samples. You will take modest iterative steps to prove out new utility and iterate hand in hand with customers to harden features.
You will work with Physicists, AI researchers, Software Engineers and Computational Geometry experts. You will work with a team to carry early prototypes through iteration and hardening all the way to customer use.
What We’re Looking For
Qualifications;
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Have published work leveraging or building a simulation practice.
MS/MSc with 4+ years experience or
PhD with 2+ years experience
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2+ years using or building physics simulators
FEM, FEA, Molecular Dynamics, FDTD
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Applied machine learning approaches
Computer Vision, GraphNN, Transformer Architectures
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Working knowledge of modern ML basics
back prop, loss functions, generators, embeddings, transformer models
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Experience with some modern ML practices
PyTorch, Numpy, Cuda
Training & Evaluation practices
Have contributed to a production data processing system.
We are very excited to talk with you if you have
Applied ML to the problem of
Meshing geometry
Accelerating FEM or DFT simulations
Experience going from early stage prototype moving to a production environment at a Startup or National Lab
Have leveraged simulation for design or data generation purposes.
Engineering Expectations
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Software engineering fundamentals
Comfortable meeting software design standards to get code into a production environment.
Capable of leveraging pre-existing infrastructure and “closing the gap” on occasion
Strong CI, regression testing, and validation discipline
Comfort evolving core model infrastructure
Why Vinci
Join a rare early-stage startup that has successfully moved a foundational product from research to real-world, production environments, already serving Tier-1 semiconductor and hardware customers.
Our Mission & Impact
Vinci is building the operator intelligence infrastructure that modern hardware programs rely on daily. We are scaling our solution to accelerate design validation from hours to seconds. You will contribute to expanding our unified model architecture, which currently runs billion-voxel inference, into the transient domain—a key frontier in modeling interactions, deformation, and dynamics. Our ambition is to become the default operator intelligence layer for hardware companies.
Growth & Opportunity
This is a unique opportunity for technical and professional growth, as you will define a foundational abstraction layer early in the company's trajectory. The team is small, friendly, and accessible. You will be empowered to "own and architect large pieces of the system" alongside a team of Physicists, AI researchers, Software Engineers, and Computational Geometry experts. This includes greenfield opportunities to expand Vinci’s core capabilities.
Leadership
You will work with spectacular technical leaders like CTO Sarah Osentoski and CEO Hardik Kabaria, whose vision is to greatly accelerate physics simulations with ML while retaining solver grade accuracy.