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.  We report extensively on consumer trends and challenges, and survey millions of people in the U.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. We offer medical 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.

This is a full-time remote opportunity, with hybrid work available for candidates local to Consumer Reports offices in New York or Washington, D.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.
• You understand the balance between near-term product delivery and longer-term investment in innovation, and are capable of operating effectively in early phases of product development (spike → proof-of-concept → early prototype).
• You have practical understanding or curiosity regarding consumer rights, consumer advocacy, product ethics, and how responsible AI can empower individuals.

You'll Be One of Our Top Picks If:

• You have the experience. 7+ years of professional software engineering experience; a Swiss army knife of engineering skill with demonstrated expertise in Python (particularly FastAPI), frontend development frameworks (ideally React and React Native) and AI orchestration.
• You've built and shipped applied AI products to consumers (building data pipelines, fine-tuning models, evaluating AI tools).
• You have a demonstrated curiosity for solving challenging and non-straightforward engineering problems; this might be reflected in a prior research engineering position, contributions to open source projects, self-directed programming projects, or something you'll surprise us with.
• You bring a track record of designing and building innovative prototypes from the ground up, with examples you can walk through.
• You have exceptional problem-solving skills and the ability to clearly communicate technical concepts to cross-functional teams.
• You have experience mentoring other engineers or otherwise multiplying the work of a team.

FAIR PAY AND A JUST WORKPLACE

At Consumer Reports, we are committed to fair, transparent pay and we strive to provide competitive, market-informed compensation informed by location, as well as the candidate’s particular combination of knowledge, skills, competencies, and experience. It is expected that most qualified candidates will fall near the middle of the posted salary range. We have three locations: Yonkers, NY, Washington, DC and Colchester, CT. We are registered to do business in and can only hire from the following states and federal district: Arizona, California, Connecticut, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Texas, Vermont, Virginia and Washington, DC.

Salary ranges

• NY/California: $140K-$160K annually
• DMV/Massachusetts: $120K-$140K annually
• Colchester, CT and additional approved CR locations:  $115K-$135K annually

Consumer Reports is an equal opportunity employer and does not discriminate in employment on the basis of actual or perceived race, color, creed, religion, age, national origin, ancestry, citizenship status, sex or gender (including pregnancy, childbirth, related medical conditions or lactation), gender identity and expression (including transgender status), sexual orientation, marital status, military service or veteran status, protected medical condition as defined by applicable state or local law, disability, genetic information, or any other basis protected by applicable federal, state or local laws.  Consumer Reports will provide you with any reasonable assistance or accommodation for any part of the application and hiring process.