Senior Research Scientist, Large Behavior Models

Cambridge, MA - USA

Yearly Salary: $ 180000 - 270000

Posted on: 7 hours ago

Vacancies: 1 Vacancy

Job Summary

At Toyota Research Institute (TRI) were on a mission to improve the quality of human life. Were developing new tools and capabilities to amplify the human experience. To lead this ground-breaking shift in mobility weve built an extraordinary team in Automated Driving Energy & Materials Human-Centered AI Human Interactive Driving Large Behavioral Models and Robotics.

The Mission

Make general-purpose robots a reality.

The Challenge

We envision a future where robots assist with household chores and cooking aid the older population in maintaining their independence and enable people to spend more time on the activities they enjoy most. To achieve this robots need to be able to operate optimally in messy unstructured environments. Our mission is to answer the question What will it take to create truly general-purpose robots that can accomplish a wide variety of tasks in settings like human homes with minimal human supervision. We believe the answer lies in cultivating large-scale datasets of physical interactions from diverse sources and using the latest advances in machine learning to learn general-purpose robot behaviors from them.

The Team

Our goal is to revolutionize the field of robotic manipulation enabling long-horizon dexterous behaviors to be efficiently taught learned and improved over time in diverse real-world environments.

Our team has deep multi-functional expertise across hardware simulation perception controls and machine learning and we measure our success in terms of fundamental capabilities development as well as research impact via open-source software and publications. Our north star is fundamental technological advancement in building robots which can flexibly perform a wide variety of tasks in diverse environments with minimal human supervision. Come join us and lets make general-purpose robots a reality.

Some of our ongoing work is highlighted here.

The Opportunity

Were looking for a driven research scientist or research engineer with a strong background in embodied machine learning and a make it happen mentality. The ideal candidate is able to work independently when needed but works well witha larger integrated group at the latest of state-of-the-art robotics and machine learning. Experience with robots or other embodied systems (such as autonomous vehicles) is strongly preferred particularly in the manipulation domain.

If our mission of revolutionizing robotics through machine learning resonates with you then lets talk about how we can create the next generation of AI-powered capable robots together.

Responsibilities

Work as part of a dynamic closely-knit research team building useful robots and general-purpose robot foundation models.
Implement extend and create innovative methods for robot behavior learning from a mixture of interactive embodied data and online data sources.
Design and implement high-performance machine-learning pipelines and optimize data and learning stacks for scalability efficiency and performance.
Be a key member of the team and play a critical role in rapid progress measured by both the development of internal capabilities and high-impact external publication.
Collaborate with internal research scientists and our partner labs at top academic research universities including MIT Stanford Berkeley CMU Columbia and Princeton to drive pioneering research at scale.

Qualifications

4 years of relevant industry experience or a PhD.
Experience training large models and deploying them on embodied systems.
Strong software development skills in Python familiarity with mixed C/Python codebases and a focus on clean maintainable code.
Extensive experience with Machine Learning using a major framework such as PyTorch or TensorFlow. Familiarity with data pipelines model serving and optimization cloud training and dataset management.
Strong understanding of the state-of-the-art in robot learning including vision-language-action (VLA) models reinforcement learning and/or computer vision.
Practical experience with robots and the system integration challenges inherent in conducting research and deploying onto physical hardware platforms.
An ability to adapt quickly and switch between modes of rapid prototyping and robust implementation as required.
A consistent track record of impact either via first author research publications at top-tier machine learning or robotics conferences (RSS NeuRIPS ICML ICLR CoRL ICRA IROS ) or via relevant contributions to successful industry initiatives.

Bonus Qualifications

Experience with robotic middleware such as ROS 2 and common communication methods and protocols.
Experience with modern ML infrastructure pipelines approaches and tools.
Experience with VR-based teleoperation for real-time robot control.
Background or familiarity with some of the following: motion control and actuation whole-body control reinforcement learning robot teleoperation methods common communication protocols research robotic arms/systems visual perception and depth sensors machine learning robotic simulation force and tactile sensing systems haptic interfaces.

The pay range for this position at commencement of employment is expected to be between $180000 and $270000/year for Massachusetts-based roles. Base pay offered will depend on multiple individualized factors including but not limited to business or organizational needs market location job-related knowledge skills and experience. TRI offers a generous benefits package including medical dental and vision insurance 401(k) eligibility paid time off benefits (including vacation sick time and parental leave) and an annual cash bonus structure. Additional details regarding these benefit plans will be provided if an employee receives an offer of employment.

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TRI is fueled by a diverse and inclusive community of people with unique backgrounds education and life experiences. We are dedicated to fostering an innovative and collaborative environment by living the values that are an essential part of our culture. We believe diversity makes us stronger and are proud to provide Equal Employment Opportunity for all without regard to an applicants race color creed gender gender identity or expression sexual orientation national origin age physical or mental disability medical condition religion marital status genetic information veteran status or any other status protected under federal state or local laws.

It is unlawful in Massachusetts to require or administer a lie detector test as a condition of employment or continued employment. An employer who violates this law shall be subject to criminal penalties and civil liability. Pursuant to the San Francisco Fair Chance Ordinance we will consider qualified applicants with arrest and conviction records for employment.

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Required Experience:

Senior IC