PhD or Master's in Computer Science, Electrical Engineering, or related field.
Strong understanding of multimodal AI systems and real-world applications.
Experience designing AI-driven user experiences at scale.
Ability to innovate beyond existing interaction paradigms.
Hands-on experience with Multimodal LLMs or Vision-Language Models.
Familiarity with the intelligent systems stack (perception, reasoning, action).
Strong product intuition and user-centric thinking.
Proven track record of impactful interaction experiences or research publications.
Excellent cross-functional communication skills.
Responsibilities
Define vision for next-generation AI multimodal interaction systems.
Design agent-centric interaction models focused on autonomy and collaboration.
Lead seamless multimodal experience across diverse platforms.
Integrate multimodal foundation models into interaction systems.
Quickly iterate from concept to production-ready solutions.
Identify and unify interaction frameworks across modalities.
Drive comprehensive experience thinking from perception to feedback.
Stay current with industry trends to inform product innovations.
Benefits
Permanent position with career growth opportunities.
Direct hiring team review of applications, ensuring personalized processes.
Work on cutting-edge AI and multimodal technologies.
Full Job Description
Huawei Canada has an immediate permanent opening for a Senior Principal Researcher.
About the job:
Define and drive the end-to-end vision for next-generation AI agent-native multimodal interaction systems. Define how agents perceive, reason, and act through multimodal signals (voice, vision, touch, context).
Design interaction models centered on agent autonomy and collaboration, moving beyond traditional GUI/VUI toward intent-driven and context-aware experiences.
Lead the design of seamless multimodal experiences across platforms (e.g., mobile, automotive, wearables, smart environments), ensuring consistency and adaptability.
Lead the integration of multimodal foundation models (VLM, multimodal LLMs) into real-world interaction systems.
Lead the design of seamless multimodal experiences across: Mobile, AI PC, automotive, AI glasses, wearable devices, and smart environments.
Iterate quickly from concept to production-ready solutions, evaluating usability, latency, feedback loops, and real-world behavior prior to production.
Identify opportunities to unify interaction frameworks across modalities, reducing fragmentation between voice, visual, and physical interfaces.
Drive end-to-end experience thinking, from perception and reasoning to response and user feedback, rather than isolated component optimization.
Stay at the forefront of industry trends (e.g., AI agents, multimodal foundation models, embodied AI) and translate them into product innovations and high-value IP / patents.
About the ideal candidate:
PhD or Master degree in Computer Science (HCI, AI, Computing System), Electrical Engineering, or a related field.
Strong understanding of multimodal AI systems, including how perception (audio, vision, other sensing modalities) and MM language models interact in real-world applications.
Experience designing or shipping AI-driven user experiences (e.g., voice assistants, copilots, agents, or multimodal interfaces) at scale.
Ability to think beyond existing paradigms (e.g., GUI, VUI) and define new interaction models enabled by AI.
Hands-on experience with Multimodal LLMs or Vision-Language Models and Real-world applications of foundation models in interaction systems.
Familiarity with the end-to-end stack of intelligent systems (perception 12 reasoning 12 action), even if not specializing in a single component.
Strong product intuition and user-centric thinking, with the ability to balance technical feasibility and experience quality.
Proven track record of delivering innovative interaction experiences to large-scale consumer products, or equivalent impact through influential research (publications at CHI, UIST, NeurIPS, InterSpeech, ICASSP, ICLR, or similar venues).
Excellent cross-functional communication skills, able to align engineering, design, and research stakeholders.
Additional Information:
All applications for this position are reviewed directly by our hiring team, we do not use artificial intelligence tools to screen or select candidates.
