Research Scientist, Robotics Seattle, WA View job

Role: Research Scientist, Robotics
Location: Seattle, WA

Role Overview:
Research Scientists in the Ai2 Robotics Team will have the unique opportunity to develop and investigate core research problems in foundation models for robotics, and contribute to the development of completely open methods, data sets, benchmarks, and models. They will experiment with large-scale simulation tools and robots in the real world. Research Scientists will work on multiple exciting research projects in the above areas but can also contribute and engage in a variety of other activities critical to our research and mission. These include opportunities to lead projects, mentor interns and pre-doctoral candidates, author and present scientific papers, and collaborate with researchers at other organizations including universities. At Ai2, you will be working with world-class AI and robotics researchers and talented software engineers. You will perform team-based, ambitious research, with a mandate to strive for big breakthroughs, not just incremental progress, in an exciting and interactive workplace.

About the Team:
Ai2’s Robotics team is led by Dieter Fox. We aim to develop and leverage scalable simulation domains to scientifically investigate the scaling and generalization capabilities of foundation models for robotics, and use these insights to develop broadly competent robots. Following a longstanding tradition at Ai2, we are committed to fully open-source research and work toward application domains with a positive impact on society. We are looking for applicants interested in robotics, with a focus on core techniques in robot manipulation, large scale training in simulated environments, sim-to-real transfer, robot foundation models, and skill learning. We regularly publish in high-profile conferences and journals in robotics (CoRL, ICRA, RSS), computer vision (CVPR, ICCV, ECCV), and machine learning (e.g., NeurIPS, ICLR, ICML). We collaborate frequently with researchers on other Ai2 teams focused on computer vision, large language models, and others. Our main office has close ties and unique access to researchers at the University of Washington, only 1.5 miles away. Researchers excited about such internal and external collaborations are encouraged to apply.

Responsibilities:
- Develop and investigate core research problems in foundation models for robotics.
- Contribute to the development of completely open methods, data sets, benchmarks, and models.
- Experiment with large-scale simulation tools and robots in the real world.
- Lead projects and mentor interns and pre-doctoral candidates.
- Author and present scientific papers.
- Collaborate with researchers at other organizations including universities.
- Perform team-based, ambitious research with a mandate to strive for big breakthroughs.

Requirements and Qualifications:
- A strong foundation (typically PhD level) in one or more of the following areas: robot manipulation, planning and control, RL and imitation learning, real world robot systems, simulation environments and sim2real, and world models and foundation models.
- A strong publication record in AI-related areas. Example venues include CoRL, ICRA, RSS, CVPR, ICCV, ECCV, NeurIPS, ICLR, etc. Contributions to research communities (e.g. workshop organization, tutorials) are a plus.
- Strong software engineering skills. Experience working with real robot systems and/or with deep learning frameworks.
- (Optional) Research experience in related areas like large-scale multi-node training, training dynamics, efficiency, data curation, and multimodal model debugging, post-training methods, among others.
- (Optional) Contributions to open-source research libraries.

Physical Demands and Work Environment:
- Must be able to remain in a stationary position for long periods of time.
- The ability to communicate information and ideas so others will understand. Must be able to exchange accurate information in these situations.
- The ability to observe details at close range.
- Can work under deadlines.
- Reasonable accommodations may be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform the functions.

What We Offer:
- Base salary range: $167,030 - $260,570, plus generous bonus plans.
- Medical, dental, vision, basic life insurance, basic accidental death and dismemberment insurance, short-term disability, long-term disability, and an employee assistance program.
- Voluntary life insurance, voluntary accidental death and dismemberment, health savings account plan, healthcare reimbursement arrangement plan, and health care and dependent care flexible spending account plans.
- Company 401k plan.
- $125 per month to assist with commuting or internet expenses.
- $200 per month for fitness and wellbeing expenses.
- Up to ten sick days per year, up to seven personal days per year, up to 20 vacation days per year, and twelve paid holidays throughout the calendar year.
- Annual bonuses and participation in the long-term incentive plan.
- Opportunities for continued learning through weekly Ai2 Academy lectures and guest speakers.
- A collaborative, transparent, and inclusive culture with a focus on work/life balance.