Senior Research Engineer, Semantic Search
Own the neural architecture behind Mosaico's semantic search over high-frequency, multi-modal robotics data (embeddings, LLMs, and Video-LLMs), with a direct line to the CSO.
Mosaico is an open-source data platform for robotics and physical AI. We’re solving a hard infrastructure problem: the tools that exist today for storing, indexing, and retrieving high-frequency sensor data are either too primitive or too painful to work with at scale.
We’re building the missing piece, and doing it in the open. Apache 2.0 licensed, public roadmap, real community. We care about the codebase being something people actually want to read and contribute to, not just use. In Italy, companies that operate this way are still a rarity, and we think that’s exactly what makes this interesting.
We’re based in Reggio Emilia, working with teams in defence, automotive, and agritech, and we’re building a commercial offering on top of the open-source core.
The role
Mosaico is building the intelligence layer that turns stored sensor data into semantic understanding. We’re looking for a Senior Research Engineer to own the neural architecture behind it: the models that let users search, retrieve, and reason over high-frequency, multi-modal robotics data by meaning rather than by raw signal.
This is a high-autonomy role with a direct line to the Chief Scientific Officer. You will be responsible for the architecture behind Mosaico’s semantic search and for taking it from concept to production. That means evaluating the possible approaches to a given problem, defining the architecture and its trade-offs, adapting existing designs where needed, and owning delivery.
What you’ll work on
- Design and implement the neural network architectures powering Mosaico’s semantic search module, from the embedding models to the retrieval strategy
- Design, adapt, and deploy LLMs and Video-LLMs for multi-modal embeddings and semantic understanding of sensor and video data
- Develop neural architectures for point clouds and time-series understanding, bringing high-frequency sensor signals into the semantic search space
- Advance the platform toward true multi-modal semantic search: models that learn joint representations across heterogeneous sensor streams and retrieve by correlating signals from different modalities
- Partner with the Storage/DB and Backend experts to integrate semantic search natively into the Mosaico ecosystem
What we’re looking for
- Proven senior-level experience designing neural network architectures, ideally applied to robotics or Physical AI data
- Deep expertise in representation learning and embeddings, with a track record of models whose representations actually perform in retrieval
- Hands-on experience with semantic and similarity search, and with the retrieval and indexing strategies that make it work at scale
- Demonstrated experience training and fine-tuning LLMs and Video-LLMs for visual and semantic understanding
- Real experience with multi-modal or cross-modal learning: building joint or aligned representations across different data types
- Familiarity with modeling high-frequency, time-series sensor data and the challenge of bringing heterogeneous signals into a shared representation space
- Comfortable operating with high autonomy and a direct reporting line to the C-level leadership
- Solid software engineering fundamentals (Python expected) and the ability to collaborate across storage and backend boundaries
- Fluent in English, written and spoken
Nice to have
- Experience with multi-modal and time-series sensor data (LIDAR, IMU, video, GPS) and the synchronization/representation challenges they bring
- Hands-on work with distributed training and the infrastructure behind it
- Experience designing scalable AI architectures that hold up in production
- Open-source contributions in the ML, data, or systems space
- Familiarity with robotics middleware
What we offer
- Full ownership of Mosaico’s semantic search module, the core part of how the platform evolves toward scalable Physical AI
- A small core team working on hard infrastructure problems in the open
- Work that ships as open source under Apache 2.0 and powers a commercial product
- Flexible hours, full remote with optional office access in Reggio Emilia
- Competitive salary, discussed openly based on your level and experience
- Welfare package
- Stock options
Salary range
€70K – 100K, adjusted based on location, experience, and level.
Contacts
Interested? Write to [email protected]