Senior Research Engineer

Senior Research Engineer

NYU Grossman School of Medicine is one of the nation's top-ranked medical schools. For 175 years, NYU Grossman School of Medicine has trained thousands of physicians and scientists who have helped to shape the course of medical history and enrich the lives of countless people. An integral part of NYU Langone Health, the Grossman School of Medicine at its core is committed to improving the human condition through medical education, scientific research, and direct patient care. At NYU Langone Health, equity and inclusion are fundamental values. We strive to be a place where our exceptionally talented faculty, staff, and students of all identities can thrive. We embrace inclusion and individual skills, ideas, and knowledge.

Position Summary: We have an exciting opportunity to join our team as a Senior Research Engineer. The newly established NYU Langone Center for Orthopedic Data Science and Artificial Intelligence (CODA) is seeking a Senior Machine Learning Research Engineer to develop next-generation multimodal ML systems for musculoskeletal care. This engineer will be our first engineering hire and responsible for architectural and modeling groundwork for how we curate, model, and utilize highly unique, multimodal clinical datasets (e.g. radiographic imaging, clinical photographs, clinical videos, natural language and electronic health records). Working closely with a multidisciplinary team, you will translate complex real-world challenges into robust ML solutions and research workflows as part of an integrated bedside to bench and back approach. This is a foundational hire, with the candidate shaping our technical direction from scratch, but with the full backing of NYU Langone's data and compute infrastructure. The ideal candidate will combine technical depth with excellent cross-disciplinary collaboration skills, clear communication, and the ability to navigate open-ended scientific problems with curiosity and rigor. Clinical data is primarily managed by NYU Langone's internal data team, MCIT, which will form the structured foundation for these efforts. Significant computational resources are available via our institutional high-performance supercomputing cluster. Numerous collaborating labs are available to provide infrastructure and experience. You will work directly with Dr. Jie Yao as a respected collaborator to drive the centers technical direction.

Job Responsibilities:

• End-to-End ML Development: Own the full lifecycle of our early AI initiatives. You will architect data pipelines to ingest complex clinical data, train foundational machine learning models, and establish the infrastructure to securely deploy and monitor these systems.
• Research: Define critical quality improvement and research questions; and contribute to fundamental method development including statistical, machine learning, and optimization-based approaches. Pursue and co-author publishable research in collaboration with clinical and scientific partners.
• Technical Foundation: Establish the centers engineering standards. Help define best practices for code quality, implement version control, and make core architectural decisions regarding our technology stack and compute infrastructure. These early decisions will lay the groundwork for how CODA builds moving forward.
• Clinical Translation: Serve as a bridge between machine learning, clinical practice, and scientific research. Work closely with surgeons, biologists, engineers, and clinical researchers to translate ambiguous clinical workflows and research goals into concrete technical problems. Communicate model capabilities, trade-offs, uncertainty, and data limitations clearly to collaborators from diverse backgrounds while ensuring solutions remain clinically relevant, interpretable, and practical.
• Team Development: Support recruiting as the center grows. Contribute to continuing education and professional development including conferences, journal clubs, and other educational activities. Help shape a collaborative culture.

Minimum Qualifications: To qualify you must have a Education: B.S./M.S. in Computer Science, Data Science, or related quantitative fields with 3+ years of industry or equivalent ML experience; OR a PhD in a related field (including dissertation work). Technical Proficiency: Strong programing skills in Python and SQL with experience working with large relational datasets (e.g. cohort construction, longitudinal analysis, or feature engineering from production or clinical databases). Expertise in modern deep learning frameworks (e.g. PyTorch and TensorFlow) and standard data processing libraries, and familiarity with containerization (e.g. Docker) and computing infrastructure. Systems Architecture: Proven industry experience or a strong research track record demonstrating ability to build end-of-to-end experimental pipelines, handle large, unstructured datasets, and rigorously evaluate model performance. Cross-Domain Communication: Exceptional collaboration and communication skills, including the ability to work effectively with clinicians, surgeons, biologists, and researchers from diverse technical backgrounds. Demonstrated ability to explain complex algorithmic trade-offs, uncertainty, modeling decisions, and data limitations to collaborators across domains. Excellent communication skills with proficiency in written and oral English. Autonomy: A proven ability to drive open-ended projects from initial concept to a completed, reproducible, and scalable solution.

Preferred Qualifications: Ph.D. that includes 3+ years, including dissertation work in machine learning, computer vision, natural language processing, or a related area. Experience with medical imaging (XR, MRI, CT) or multimodal clinical datasets. Familiarity with clinical data standards (HL7, FHIR, DICOM). Experience working in a regulated or HIPAA-compliant environment. A previous publication record in ML, clinical AI, or a related field. Experience with high performance computing systems.

Qualified candidates must be able to effectively communicate with all levels of the organization. NYU Grossman School of Medicine provides its staff with far more than just a place to work. Rather, we are an institution you can be proud of, an institution where you'll feel good about devoting your time and your talents. At NYU Langone Health, we are committed to supporting our workforce and their loved ones with a comprehensive benefits and wellness package. Our offerings provide a robust support system for any stage of life, whether it's developing your career, starting a family, or saving for retirement. The support employees receive goes beyond a standard benefit offering, where employees have access to financial security benefits, a generous time-off program and employee resources groups for peer support. Additionally, all employees have access to our holistic employee wellness program, which focuses on seven key areas of well-being: physical, mental, nutritional, sleep, social, financial, and preventive care. The benefits and wellness package is designed to allow you to focus on what truly matters. Join us and experience the extensive resources and services designed to enhance your overall quality of life for you and your family. NYU Grossman School of Medicine is an equal opportunity employer and committed to inclusion in all aspects of recruiting and employment. All qualified individuals are encouraged to apply and will receive consideration. We require applications to be completed online. View Know Your Rights: Workplace discrimination is illegal.

NYU Langone Health provides a salary range to comply with the New York state Law on Salary Transparency in Job Advertisements. The salary range for the role is $101,493.51 - $132,088.00 Annually. Actual salaries depend on a variety of factors, including experience, specialty, education, and hospital need. The salary range or contractual rate listed does not include bonuses/incentive, differential pay or other forms of compensation or benefits.