Senior Research Engineer - Experimental Engineering

WHO WE ARE

Consumer Reports is an independent, nonprofit organization dedicated to a fair and just marketplace for all. CR is known for our rigorous testing and trusted ratings on thousands of products and services. S.

each year. We leverage our evidence-based approach to advocate for consumer rights, working with policymakers and companies to find solutions for safer products and fair practices. Our mission starts with you.

Benefits

that start on your first day as a CR employee that include behavioral health coverage, family planning and a generous 401K match. Learn more about how CR advocates on behalf of our employees. OVERVIEW The Experimental Engineering team leads the engineering R D efforts in new and emerging products at Consumer Reports.

We're seeking a highly capable Senior Research Engineer to join our team and drive forward exploratory research engineering with particular focus on innovative applications of AI, machine learning, and emerging technologies. In this role, you’ll embark on ambitious early-stage engineering efforts, validate concepts through rapid prototypes, and translate timely experiments into actionable insights that guide Consumer Reports' strategic initiatives. Research engineers operate 6+ months ahead of product roadmaps.

Your work will be essential to identifying opportunities and pushing our technological boundaries. C. This position is not eligibale for sponsorship or relocation assistance.

How You'll Make An Impact Consumer Reports’ Experimental Engineering team is dedicated to rapidly exploring and prototyping solutions that empower consumers. As a Sr. Research Engineer on our team, you will: Lead exploratory spikes, proof-of-concept projects, and early-stage prototyping end-to-end to test high-impact, forward-looking ideas.

Identify strategic opportunities in emerging technologies (notably AI/ML) and translate these opportunities into actionable prototypes Serve as a technical leader on AskCR, our RAG chatbot built on Consumer Reports' product testing, journalism, and advocacy work and own architectural decisions on retrieval, evaluation, and orchestration Collaborate closely on technical planning, architecture, and implementation efforts for AskCR, our RAG chatbot built on Consumer Report’s product testing, journalism and advocacy work. Work collaboratively across cross-functional teams (Digital Product, Product Testing, User Research, Data Engineering, Advocacy) to share insights and ensure learnings are leveraged broadly across Consumer Reports. Establish and refine practices for documenting experiments and synthesizing research outputs to maximize their organizational impact.

Mentor engineers and raise the technical bar across the team. Cultivate a culture of curiosity, experimentation, rapid learning, and discovery. ABOUT YOU You’ll Be Highly Rated If: You have deep experience as a full-stack software engineer, with additional depth and interest in applied research, particularly within AI/ML domains.

You are a problem solver. You can take a vague problem and return with a crisp framing, a plan, and a working prototype without needing the path defined for you. You are motivated by entrepreneurial challenges, comfortable navigating ambiguity, and experienced in rapidly iterating early ideas to test feasibility and viability.

You're comfortable being a senior voice on the team and making calls on technical direction, pushing back when something isn't worth building, and knowing when to kill a project. You effectively communicate experimental findings and engineering insights clearly and enthusiastically to both technical and non-technical stakeholders.