---
title: 'Research Engineer at Higharc'
canonical: 'https://feeny.ai/job/research-engineer-higharc-united-states-gdz3n399h3pb'
type: 'job'
last_seen: '2026-10-20'
---

# Research Engineer at Higharc

- **Company:** Higharc
- **Location:** United States
- **Employment:** full-time
- **Work type:** remote
- **Posted:** 2026-03-30
- **Last confirmed live:** 2026-10-20
- **Apply:** https://jobs.ashbyhq.com/Higharc/39a7afd6-0124-49dc-826e-d2248c284cbb/application

**Skills:** Python, Hugging Face Transformers, PyTorch, LLM Development, Fine-tuning, RAG Architectures, Vector Databases, Pinecone, Weaviate, pgvector, 3D Modeling, Computational Geometry, Computer Graphics, React, TypeScript, BIM Tools, Revit, AutoCAD, IFC, gbXML

> The Research Engineer will conduct foundational research in spatial AI for residential construction, developing novel approaches at the intersection of reinforcement learning, computer vision, LLMs, and 3D geometry. The role involves designing end-to-end LLM training pipelines, applying computer vision techniques, a...

## Job description

## About Us

Higharc is a VC-backed startup that is changing how new homes are designed and built. Join a founding team who’ve shipped products for Autodesk, Electronic Arts, Nike, and Apple. We have raised over $175M with support from top-notch venture capital firms and more than 18 strategic investors: industry leaders in construction, building products manufacturing, and distribution.

Higharc is hiring a Research Engineer to join our Special Projects team. In this role, you'll conduct foundational research in spatial AI for residential construction — developing novel approaches at the intersection of reinforcement learning, computer vision, LLMs, and 3D geometry to solve problems that have no off-the-shelf solutions.

## What You'll Do

You'll produce the research capabilities that power Higharc's AI platform, working on problems that don't exist anywhere else. Expect to:

- Design and conduct original research in spatial reasoning for residential construction, developing models that understand architectural structure, spatial relationships between building components, and the geometric constraints that govern how homes can be built.
- Design end-to-end LLM training and fine-tuning pipelines tailored to construction domains, developing domain-specific pre-training and SFT datasets from architectural drawings, building codes, product specifications, and construction documentation.
- Apply computer vision techniques to extract semantic structure from architectural inputs and develop multimodal training pipelines that link visual and textual representations of building data, enabling models that reason across drawings, specifications, and code requirements simultaneously.
- Develop RL-based approaches for generative architectural design and architect RAG systems that ground LLM outputs in authoritative construction knowledge bases, reducing hallucination for high-stakes building decisions.
- Define construction-domain benchmarks, build ground-truth datasets, and establish eval pipelines that measure model performance against real homebuilding tasks rather than generic benchmarks. Research emerging foundation models and parameter-efficient fine-tuning approaches (LoRA, QLoRA, adapter layers) to inform Higharc's model strategy.
- Deliver research outputs ready for integration, including documented model artifacts, serving-ready pipelines, and clear API contracts, and partner with the Prototyping Engineer to deploy fine-tuned models and RAG systems into the Higharc platform.

## About You

You do your best work when you can go deep. You treat residential construction as a worthy and complex problem space, not a stepping stone to a more prestigious domain, and you bring the same intellectual honesty to negative results as to positive ones. You understand that research that never ships is indistinguishable from research that never happened. You have:

- 5+ years of professional software engineering experience, with 2+ years directly on LLM development, fine-tuning, or applied ML systems in production
- Hands-on experience with model training frameworks (HuggingFace Transformers, PyTorch) and fine-tuning workflows on domain-specific corpora
- Practical experience with RAG architectures, vector databases (Pinecone, Weaviate, pgvector), and embedding model selection
- Experience with 3D modeling, computational geometry, or computer graphics in a research or production context
- Strong proficiency in Python across the ML ecosystem; React/TypeScript proficiency for integration work
- A Master's degree in Computer Science, Machine Learning, AI, or a closely related field

A major plus if you also bring:

- A Ph.D., particularly for candidates focused on model research and pre-training
- Open-source contributions or published research
- Familiarity with BIM tools (Revit, AutoCAD) or BIM data formats (IFC, gbXML)
- Experience with Three.js or equivalent 3D frameworks

While we've identified the core experience and skills required above, please still apply if you have more or different experience than this! We will use your previous experience and performance across the series of interviews to establish appropriate level within our organization in a fair and equitable way.

Working at Higharc Remote work and travel: Our company is entirely remote, and has been since we were founded in 2018. Remote work means more time with family, less time commuting, and the flexibility to blend work and life. We value in-person collaboration and asynchronous deep-work time, which is why we schedule regular team meet-ups in our hubs across the US and, depending on the role, prioritize hiring in those hubs. If your role requires frequent travel beyond pre-scheduled team meet ups, we will represent that to the best of our ability as early as possible in the interview process. Compensation and benefits: Higharc offers competitive salaries with significant equity, in a fast-growing, well-funded company. We provide comprehensive medical, dental, and vision coverage, with flexible PTO, and meaningful maternity/paternity leave to all U.S based employees that are full-time. You'll also have access to other big-company benefits such like short and long-term disability plans and a 401K. We also provide a stipend to create the ideal home office and support ongoing L&D.

Please note: we are seeing an uptick of fraudulent recruiting activity claiming to be associated with Higharc. All communication and outreach from our in-house team will come from an @higharc.com email address.

## About Higharc

## Company Overview
- **One-liner**: Higharc provides an AI-powered, connected homebuilding cloud platform that automates design, sales, estimating, and construction processes for homebuilders.
- **Entity Type**: Private (VC-backed, $78M+ total funding)
- **Headquarters**: Durham, North Carolina, USA (with additional offices in Atlanta, GA and San Francisco, CA)
- **Founded**: 2018
- **Founders**: Marc Minor (CEO), Michael Bergin (Co-founder, Chief R&D), Peter Boyer (Co-founder, CTO Emeritus), Thomas Holt (Co-founder, VP of Visualization)

## Core Business
- **Primary industry**: Homebuilding technology / Construction software / AI for architecture & engineering
- **Target customers**: B2B – residential homebuilders, from large production builders to smaller regional builders
- **Mission statement**: “Help builders create better homes and communities, more affordably.” [higharc.com/company/about](https://www.higharc.com/company/about)

## Products & Services
- **Higharc Homebuilding Cloud (SaaS platform)**: An end-to-end platform that replaces disconnected legacy tools. Core capabilities include AI-driven home design (generative design), automated configuration of market-proven plans, generation of lot-specific estimates and permit-ready construction documents, and creation of 3D shoppable visuals for sales and marketing. Every change in design or buyer selection automatically propagates to estimates, documents, and marketing assets. [higharc.com](https://www.higharc.com/)
- **Higharc AI (announced Feb 2025)**: Production-ready generative AI for faster home design and development, enabling builders to create new plans and variants from scratch. [higharc.com/company/about](https://www.higharc.com/company/about)
- **MarkSystems integration (Feb 2026)**: A jointly developed integration with MarkSystems (ECI Software Solutions) that unifies product design, configuration, estimating, and construction management into a single workflow. [higharc.com/company/about](https://www.higharc.com/company/about)

## Market Standing
- **Valuation**: Not publicly disclosed (private company)
- **Key Metric**: Total funding raised – $78M (as stated on company site; LinkedIn reports $80M). Announced milestones include a $21M Series A (2021, led by Spark Capital) and a $53M Series B (Feb 2024). [higharc.com/company/about](https://www.higharc.com/company/about) | [linkedin.com/company/higharc](https://www.linkedin.com/company/higharc)
- **Annual Revenue**: Not publicly available; LinkedIn estimates $3.1M (unverified, use with caution). [linkedin.com/company/higharc](https://www.linkedin.com/company/higharc)
- **Employee Count**: ~155 (as of mid-2026, up 64% YoY according to LinkedIn) [linkedin.com/company/higharc](https://www.linkedin.com/company/higharc)
- **Notable Investors & Partners**: Spark Capital, SE Ventures (Schneider Electric), Home Depot Ventures, Fifth Wall, Ferguson, Suffolk Technologies, Starwood Capital, Standard Investments, PSP Partners, Carl Bass (former Autodesk CEO), Scott Belsky (CPO of Adobe), Wayne Chang (Built Technologies founder), GAF, RXR. [higharc.com/company/about](https://www.higharc.com/company/about)
- **Growth Signals**:
  - Named **#28 Fastest-growing Company in North America** on Deloitte’s 2025 Technology Fast 500. [higharc.com/company/about](https://www.higharc.com/company/about)
  - Selected for **Fast Company’s 2024 Best Workplaces for Innovators**. [higharc.com/company/about](https://www.higharc.com/company/about)
  - Strong headcount growth (+64% YoY) and increasing LinkedIn follower count (+45% yearly). [linkedin.com/company/higharc](https://www.linkedin.com/company/higharc)
  - Strategic partnerships with ECI Software Solutions and MarkSystems, expanding integration ecosystem. [higharc.com/company/about](https://www.higharc.com/company/about)

## Competitive Advantages
- **End-to-end platform**: The only solution that connects design, sales, estimating, and construction in a single cloud – reduces friction between phases and replaces multiple outdated tools.
- **Generative AI expertise**: Founding team led design automation at Autodesk, launched 3D printing companies (Carbon, Desktop Metal), and built AAA games – bringing deep generative design and AI capabilities to homebuilding.
- **Industry-backing**: Major homebuilding investors (Home Depot, Ferguson, Starwood Capital, etc.) provide domain credibility and distribution channels.
- **Proven ROI**: Customers report up to 50% increase in margins, 75% faster product development, and 15% decrease in time to open new communities. [higharc.com](https://www.higharc.com/)

## Strategic Focus
- **Continue expanding AI capabilities** (new generative AI features announced Feb 2025)
- **Deepen integrations** with construction management and ERP systems (e.g., MarkSystems/ECI partnership)
- **Scale customer base** among U.S. homebuilders, leveraging strong investor network and partner channels
- **Grow headcount** across engineering, sales, and customer success (29+ open positions as of mid-2026) [jobs.ashbyhq.com/higharc](https://jobs.ashbyhq.com/higharc)

## Why Work Here
- **Remote-first culture**: Higharc operates as a remote-first company, with flexibility for employees across the U.S. and several other countries. [higharc.com/company/careers](https://www.higharc.com/company/careers)
- **Benefits**:
  - Flexible PTO (unlimited) and generous holiday schedule
  - Comprehensive health, dental, and vision insurance (90% of premiums covered)
  - Paid parental leave
  - Modern equipment and tools provided
  - Company retreats and team-building events
  - Competitive compensation packages [higharc.com/company/careers](https://www.higharc.com/company/careers)
- **Engineering culture**: Team includes veterans from Autodesk, AAA gaming studios, and 3D printing – a strong emphasis on innovation, AI, and product quality.
- **Growth trajectory**: Fast-growing (Deloitte Fast 500, large headcount increase) offers opportunities for career advancement in a high-impact role.

## Sources
1. [higharc.com](https://www.higharc.com/) – Company homepage, product overview, and ROI stats
2. [higharc.com/company/about](https://www.higharc.com/company/about) – Founding story, investors, partners, news events, mission
3. [higharc.com/company/careers](https://www.higharc.com/company/careers) – Careers page with benefits, culture, values, open positions
4. [jobs.ashbyhq.com/higharc](https://jobs.ashbyhq.com/higharc) – Full list of open jobs (Ashby)
5. [linkedin.com/company/higharc](https://www.linkedin.com/company/higharc) – LinkedIn company page (headcount, revenue estimate, growth metrics)

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