AI Research Engineer, VLA Models Job at 1X Technologies (Palo Alto)

Machine Learning Research Engineer - Robotics

Scale’s Robotics business unit is dedicated to solving the data bottleneck in Ph...

Location

United States , San Francisco

Salary:

218400.00 - 273000.00 USD / Year

Scale

Expiration Date

Until further notice

Requirements

Practical experience building training VLA models and/or building robotics data
3+ years of relevant industry experience in areas relating to: robotics, computer vision, embodied AI, sim-to-real, imitation learning, reinforcement learning, and vision language actions models
PhD or equivalent experience in Machine Learning or Robotics
A track record of published research in robotics
Experience conducting data collection and performing evaluations
Strong written and verbal communication skills and the ability to work with cross-functional teams and customers
Intellectual curiosity, empathy, and ability to operate with a high degree of autonomy

Job Responsibility

Collaborate closely with Robotics customers to drive the industry forward in using VLA data
Develop ML pipelines to train/fine-tune models using Scale’s data
Conduct research on robotics data collection, cross-embodiment training, and policy fine-tuning
Develop novel methods for evaluating VLA models, including new robotics industry benchmarks
Partner with cross-functional stakeholders and Scale’s customers to improve data collection
Collaborate with product teams to bring ML outcomes to Scale’s platform

What we offer

Comprehensive health, dental and vision coverage
retirement benefits
a learning and development stipend
generous PTO
equity based compensation
may be eligible for additional benefits such as a commuter stipend

Fulltime

Senior AI/ML Engineer, Physical AI Solutions

This role sits at the intersection of cutting-edge AI technology and real-world ...

Location

United States , North Reading

Salary:

219800.00 - 351700.00 USD / Year

Teradyne

Expiration Date

Until further notice

Requirements

Deep understanding of sensor technologies (RGBD, LiDAR, ToF, etc.) and the ability to architect solutions that leverage their respective strengths and limitations
Experience shipping AI-powered products to market and supporting them in production customer environments
Good software engineering fundamentals with experience integrating AI/ML capabilities into existing robotics software stacks
Expertise in data science and data engineering
Collaborative mindset with experience working in cross-functional teams building complete systems
Demonstrated ability to rigorously evaluate ML model performance, establish meaningful metrics, and track quality across training iterations
Experience utilizing simulation environments to accelerate engineering and validation workflows
Technical Expertise: Core robotics AI concepts: obstacle detection, object identification and classification, pose estimation
Various SLAM approaches and their trade-offs
Localization techniques from precision to relative positioning

Job Responsibility

Lead the development and deployment of physical AI capabilities that enable robots to navigate, manipulate, and interact with their environments with unprecedented intelligence
Help engineer solutions that leverage diverse sensor modalities
Be responsible for taking AI innovations from concept through production deployment and ongoing customer support
Collaborate closely with R&D teams at Universal Robots and Mobile Industrial Robots, helping shape the future of collaborative robotics and autonomous mobile platforms across the Teradyne Robotics portfolio

What we offer

Discretionary bonus(es) based on financial performance
Robust health and well-being benefit programs, including medical, dental, vision, Flexible Spending Accounts, retirement savings plans, life and disability insurance, paid vacation & holidays, tuition assistance programs

Fulltime

Embodied AI / Simulation Engineer

As an Embodied AI / Simulation Engineer, you will develop learning-based manipul...

Location

United States , San Francisco; Oakland

Salary:

145000.00 - 200000.00 USD / Year

Formic

Expiration Date

Until further notice

Requirements

Experience training embodied AI policies for real robotic systems
Strong understanding of sim-to-real challenges and real-world failure modes
Familiarity with transformer-based action models such as ACT
Experience with diffusion policies or other generative control approaches
Experience working with multi-modal inputs including vision, proprioception, and language
Proficiency in Python and deep learning frameworks such as PyTorch or JAX
Experience integrating learned policies with real-time control system
Strong experimental design, evaluation discipline, and attention to reproducibility
Ability to operate across research and deployment constraints without losing rigor

Job Responsibility

Design and train learning-based manipulation systems for humanoid and mobile manipulation platforms
Develop and maintain high-fidelity digital twins using Isaac Sim, MuJoCo, or similar simulation tools
Implement and evaluate approaches including Action Chunking with Transformers (ACT), diffusion policies, behavior cloning, and Vision-Language-Action (VLA) models
Contribute to development of a Universal Manipulation Interface (UMI) abstraction layer
Build teleoperation-to-training data pipelines to enable scalable dataset generation
Design sim-to-real transfer strategies including domain randomization and system identification
Evaluate policy robustness, failure modes, and cross-task generalization
Partner with perception and controls teams to ensure stable closed-loop visuomotor policies
Deploy trained models onto real robotic systems and support on-hardware validation and debugging
Establish experimental rigor through structured evaluation, ablations, and performance tracking

What we offer

Equity in Formic
Competitive & Uncapped Commission Structure
Comprehensive Healthcare Coverage: Medical, dental, and vision insurance through Blue Cross Blue Shield and Unum, with 99% of employee premiums covered and 75% coverage for dependents
Additional Insurance Benefits: FSA and DCFSA, life insurance, short-term disability, and long-term disability through Unum, all 100% employer-paid
Employee Assistance Program (EAP)
Paid Parental Leave Program: Up to 12 weeks of paid parental leave
Company-sponsored 401(k)
Home Office Stipend: A one-time allowance for fully remote and hybrid employees
Monthly Cell Phone Reimbursement
Flexible Time Off

Fulltime

Staff Research Scientist - VLM / VLA

At General Motors, our product teams are redefining mobility. Through a human-ce...

Location

United States , Mountain View

Salary:

218800.00 - 335300.00 USD / Year

General Motors

Expiration Date

Until further notice

Requirements

Ph.D. in Machine Learning, Robotics, Computer Science, Electrical Engineering, or a related technical field
5+ years of experience in AI/ML research and applied development
Deep expertise in modern ML architectures (transformers, generative AI, multimodal systems)
Strong programming skills in Python
Excellent communication, collaboration, and mentoring abilities, comfortable influencing technical strategy and guiding ML excellence across the organization

Job Responsibility

Research, design, and prototype advanced Vision-Language Models and Vision-Language-Action foundational models tailored for real-time semantic understanding and behavioral prediction in autonomous driving
Drive the technical strategy for onboard model optimization, leading initiatives in model quantization, pruning, knowledge distillation, and compilation to ensure high-parameter models execute with ultra-low latency on vehicle edge hardware
Advance multimodal alignment techniques, ensuring seamless integration of camera, radar, LiDAR, and textual/logical prompts into unified foundational architectures
Influence technical roadmaps and shape strategic machine learning priorities that align with safety requirements, core product milestones, and next-generation vehicle launches
Provide technical mentorship and long-term vision to a multidisciplinary group of machine learning engineers, software developers, and hardware specialists
Foster internal innovation by collaborating closely with perception, planning, and infrastructure teams to integrate foundational models into the core autonomous software stack
Represent the company externally to the global scientific community by publishing original research, securing patents, and presenting at top-tier artificial intelligence and robotics conferences

What we offer

Medical
dental
vision
Health Savings Account
Flexible Spending Accounts
retirement savings plan
sickness and accident benefits
life insurance
paid vacation & holidays
tuition assistance programs

Fulltime

Applied Researcher

Aurora’s mission is to deliver the benefits of self-driving technology safely, q...

Location

United States , Mountain View; Pittsburgh; San Francisco; Seattle

Salary:

Not provided

Aurora Innovation

Expiration Date

Until further notice

Requirements

PhD Graduate in AI, Computer Science, or Robotics (Top-tier research lab background)
Deep expertise in Vision-Language Models (VLM) and Vision-Language-Action (VLA) models
Hands-on experience with 'jagged edges'
Practical researcher: Ability to translate complex papers into production-ready code
Collaborative Guide: Willingness to mentor existing team members and bridge the knowledge gap
Excitement for large-scale infrastructure and supercomputing environments (e.g., Aurora)
Architectural Creativity: Ability to rethink and redo entire model architectures rather than just fine-tuning
Strong programming skills in Python
Preference for a strong depth programming in modern C++

Job Responsibility

Architectural Exploration: Deep dive into VLM/VLA architectures to determine their viability for our specific problem sets
Technical Mentorship: Act as the subject matter expert and guide for an exceptionally capable engineering team eager to move into this space
Practical Implementation: Bridge the gap between high-level academic theory and practical, scalable applications
Innovation: Redesign and optimize model architectures to leverage high-performance computing environments like Aurora

Member of Technical Staff, Microsoft Robotics (Robot Learning)

Microsoft's Discovery and Quantum (MDQ) division develops and delivers advanced ...

Location

United States , Redmond

Salary:

102100.00 - 202200.00 USD / Year

Microsoft Corporation

Expiration Date

Until further notice

Requirements

Bachelor's Degree in Computer Science or related technical field AND 2+ years technical engineering experience with coding in languages including, but not limited to, C, C++, C#, Java, JavaScript, or Python OR equivalent experience
Ability to meet Microsoft, customer and/or government security screening requirements are required for this role. These requirements include, but are not limited to the following specialized security screenings Microsoft Cloud Background Check: This position will be required to pass the Microsoft Cloud Background Check upon hire/transfer and every two years thereafter.

Job Responsibility

Develop and train end-to-end robot learning models, including vision-language-action (VLA) family of models, imitation learning policies, and reinforcement learning agents for manipulation, locomotion, and navigation tasks
Build, maintain, and optimize data pipelines for robot learning, including collection infrastructure for teleoperation demonstrations, data preprocessing, augmentation, quality filtering, and dataset versioning
Train machine learning and deep learning models on GPU computing clusters, implementing distributed training, hyperparameter optimization, curriculum learning, and training infrastructure automation
Deploy trained models to physical robot platforms, conducting real-world evaluation, debugging sim-to-real transfer issues, and iterating on model performance based on deployment feedback
Implement and maintain evaluation frameworks for robot learning models, including standardized task benchmarks, success rate tracking, generalization testing across objects and environments, and regression detection
Collaborate with robotics researchers, simulation engineers, and platform engineers to improve the end-to-end model development lifecycle, from data collection through deployment and monitoring
Write production-quality code in Python (including NumPy, PyTorch, JAX) that is well-tested, maintainable, and extensible, adhering to team coding standards and best practices
Review code and technical designs, providing feedback to develop other engineers' skills and drive adherence to coding patterns, security practices, and engineering excellence standards
Stay current with state-of-the-art research in robot learning, foundation models for robotics, and physical AI, evaluating new model technologies and techniques for adoption and integration into the platform
Contribute to internal knowledge sharing through technical documentation, brown bag sessions, blog posts, and mentoring of team members

Fulltime

Applied Researcher

Location

United States , Seattle

Salary:

Not provided

Aurora Innovation

Expiration Date

Until further notice

Requirements

PhD Graduate in AI, Computer Science, or Robotics (Top-tier research lab background)
Deep expertise in Vision-Language Models (VLM) and Vision-Language-Action (VLA) models
Hands-on experience with 'jagged edges'—knowing where current architectures fail and how to troubleshoot them
Practical researcher: Ability to translate complex papers into production-ready code
Collaborative Guide: Willingness to mentor existing team members and bridge the knowledge gap
Excitement for large-scale infrastructure and supercomputing environments (e.g., Aurora)
Architectural Creativity: Ability to rethink and redo entire model architectures rather than just fine-tuning
Strong programming skills in Python
Preference for a strong depth programming in modern C++

Job Responsibility

Architectural Exploration: Deep dive into VLM/VLA architectures to determine their viability for our specific problem sets
Technical Mentorship: Act as the subject matter expert and guide for an exceptionally capable engineering team eager to move into this space
Practical Implementation: Bridge the gap between high-level academic theory and practical, scalable applications
Innovation: Redesign and optimize model architectures to leverage high-performance computing environments like Aurora

Fulltime

Applied Researcher

Who we are: Aurora’s mission is to deliver the benefits of self-driving technolo...

Location

United States , San Francisco

Salary:

Not provided

Aurora Innovation

Expiration Date

Until further notice

Requirements

PhD Graduate in AI, Computer Science, or Robotics (Top-tier research lab background)
Deep expertise in Vision-Language Models (VLM) and Vision-Language-Action (VLA) models
Hands-on experience with 'jagged edges'—knowing where current architectures fail and how to troubleshoot them
Practical researcher: Ability to translate complex papers into production-ready code
Collaborative Guide: Willingness to mentor existing team members and bridge the knowledge gap
Excitement for large-scale infrastructure and supercomputing environments (e.g., Aurora)
Architectural Creativity: Ability to rethink and redo entire model architectures rather than just fine-tuning
Strong programming skills in Python
Preference for a strong depth programming in modern C++

Job Responsibility

Architectural Exploration: Deep dive into VLM/VLA architectures to determine their viability for our specific problem sets
Technical Mentorship: Act as the subject matter expert and guide for an exceptionally capable engineering team eager to move into this space
Practical Implementation: Bridge the gap between high-level academic theory and practical, scalable applications
Innovation: Redesign and optimize model architectures to leverage high-performance computing environments like Aurora

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AI Research Engineer, VLA Models

Job Description

Job Responsibility

Requirements

What we offer

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