Research Scientist for Deep Learning and Robotic Foundation Models

Intrinsic is Alphabet’s bet aiming to reimagine the potential of industrial robotics. Our team believes that advances in AI, perception and simulation will redefine what’s possible for industrial robotics in the near future – with software and data at the core. 

Our mission is to make industrial robotics intelligent, accessible, and usable for millions more businesses, entrepreneurs, and developers. We are a dynamic team of engineers, roboticists, designers, and technologists who are passionate about unlocking the creative and economic potential of industrial robotics.

Role

As a Research Engineer in the Applied Research team, you conduct applied research and design innovative algorithms in the space of geometric computer vision and image/video/vision-centric foundation models for deployment in industrial robotics at scale. In this role you define processes and develop approaches in Deep Learning that mitigate the risks of hallucinations and improve accuracy and deploy algorithms on industrial robotics workcells to gauge sim-to-real transfer of models. As a Research Engineer at Intrinsic you provide input and guidance for the development and generation of synthetic data and annotations required for training foundation models at scale based on the identification of gaps in the sim-to-real transfer of models. You also work with Research partners and cross-disciplinary engineering teams to ideate new approaches and architectures to bring state of the art foundation models to real-world industrial applications. Constant learning and exploration of unfamiliar technologies is also part of this role. 

How your work moves the mission forward

Your work can play a significant role in democratizing access to advanced AI skills to the average user in robotics and enhance the credibility of deploying AI models at scale in industrial settings. As part of your day-to-day work, you will: 

• You are insightful and innovative, proactively identifying needs and bottlenecks based on customer problems and proposing practical solutions that are deployable in high throughput environments
• You serve as the nexus between the robotics team and our research partners—collaborating with  them, providing engineering insights into research projects, and ideating practical next generation solutions 
• You serve as an advisor to the engineering and other cross-functional teams providing critical guidance in terms of translating early (AI-powered) research capabilities into robust engineering capabilities in Flowstate (Intrinsic’s software platform for robotics solutions)
• You continually keep abreast of the latest developments in deep learning, AI, machine learning, perception to ensure that Intrinsic can continually keep evolving its advanced capabilities over time
• document and develop the prototype fully so it can be shipped to external users. 

In all the above, you will work closely with a sub-team within the R&D division, but will also frequently collaborate with other engineering, and product groups within Intrinsic.

Skills you will need to be successful

• Master’s or PhD degree in Computer Science, Robotics, or a related technical field with a high degree of passion for robotics and foundation models and a strong inclination towards accelerating the deployment of such models in practical industrial manufacturing applications
• 3 years of experience in robotics software development or research (work on your PhD can count towards this)
• Proficiency programming in Python and at least one of the ML/DL frameworks such as PyTorch, Jax, and/or Tensorflow
• Knowledge of robotics perception or manipulation algorithms.
• Experience working with robot hardware or simulation environments.
• A team player with a product mindset, a willingness to learn, and apply oneself to delivering value in practical real-world problems

Skills that will differentiate your candidacy

• Advanced degree (Master's or PhD) in Robotics, Computer Science, or a related technical field.
• Expertise in deep learning, including transformer-based approaches for robotics, and other areas such as Learning from Demonstrations, Reinforcement learning
• Proven ability to apply robotics ML/AI research to real-world problems and demonstrate tangible impact.
• Experience generating or utilizing synthetic data for machine learning in robotics.
• Publications in relevant robotics conferences or journals.

At Intrinsic, we don't just accept difference - we celebrate it, we support it, and we thrive on it for the benefit of our employees, our products and our community. We are proud to be an equal opportunity workplace and an affirmative action employer. We are committed to equal employment opportunity regardless of race, color, ancestry, religion, sex, national origin, sexual orientation, age, citizenship, marital status, disability, gender identity or Veteran status. We also consider qualified applicants regardless of criminal histories, consistent with legal requirements.

If you have a disability or special need that requires accommodation, please contact us at: candidate-support@intrinsic.ai.