Research Scientist, Human Data, Robotics, DeepMind

DeepMind Technologies Limited; Greater London; On-site; GBP 100,000 - 140,000; Full time

Job summary

Google DeepMind is seeking a Research Scientist to design, implement, and evaluate large robotic models, integrating scalable data sources and human action data into robotics foundation models. You will work with simulators and real-world robots to push dexterity and generalization, reporting findings to internal and external teams.

You will contribute to research that spans reinforcement learning, vision-language-action models, and multimodal data, collaborating across global teams while

Qualifications

• PhD in Computer Science or related field, or equivalent practical experience.
• 2 years of experience with reinforcement learning and imitation learning.
• Experience with vision, vision-language, video, and other multimodal models.
• Experience with multimodal generative modeling, training and inference.
• Experience with capture methodologies, dataset design, experimentation, and incorporation of captured human action data into VLAs or WAMs.
• Experience working with simulators and real-world robots, esp. dexterous manipulation, and multimodal sensing (e.g. tactile, forces).

Responsibilities

• Design, implement, train and evaluate large models and algorithms for robotic agents, making breakthroughs and unlocking new robot capabilities.
• Write software to implement research ideas and iterate quickly, working effectively with a large collaborative team with fast-paced agendas to meet ambitious research goals.
• Develop methodologies and design and conduct experiments for incorporating scalable data sources, especially human data with or without capture devices into our robotics foundation models.
• Leverage broader expertise to participate in a wide variety of research, including learning from simulation, reinforcement learning, learning from demonstrations, vision-language-action models, transformers, video generation, robot control, humanoid robots and more.
• Report and present research findings clearly and efficiently both internally and externally.

Skills

Reinforcement learning

Imitation learning

Multimodal models

Vision systems

Video understanding

Education

PhD in Computer Science

Related field / equivalent practical experience

Job description

Minimum qualifications

• PhD in Computer Science, a related field, or equivalent practical experience.
• 2 years of experience with reinforcement learning and imitation learning.
• Experience with vision, vision-language, video, and other multimodal models.
• Experience with multimodal generative modeling, training and inference.

Preferred qualifications

• Experience with capture methodologies, dataset design, experimentation, and incorporation of captured human action data into VLAs or WAMs.
• Experience working with simulators and real-world robots, esp. dexterous manipulation, as well as multimodal sensing (e.g. tactile, forces).
• A passion for bringing research from the lab to real-world robotic systems.

About The Job

As an organization, Google maintains a portfolio of research projects driven by fundamental research, new product innovation, product contribution and infrastructure goals, while providing individuals and teams the freedom to emphasize specific types of work. As a Research Scientist, you'll setup large-scale tests and deploy promising ideas quickly and broadly, managing deadlines and deliverables while applying the latest theories to develop new and improved products, processes, or technologies. From creating experiments and prototyping implementations to designing new architectures, our research scientists work on real-world problems that span the breadth of computer science, such as machine (and deep) learning, data mining, natural language processing, hardware and software performance analysis, improving compilers for mobile platforms, as well as core search and much more.

As a Research Scientist, you'll also actively contribute to the wider research community by sharing and publishing your findings, with ideas inspired by internal projects as well as from collaborations with research programs at partner universities and technical institutes all over the world.

For this position, we are especially looking for individuals who have experience with incorporating human video action data and / or data captured with wearable devices (eg UMI, gloves) with other data sources to push the boundaries of dexterity and generalization for robotics foundation models. This includes the design and use of the capture devices, the datasets, as well as algorithmic and modeling approaches to leverage such data.

Artificial intelligence will be one of humanity’s most transformative inventions. At Google DeepMind, we are a pioneering AI lab with exceptional interdisciplinary teams focused on advancing AI development to solve complex global challenges and accelerate high-quality product innovation for billions of users. We use our technologies for widespread public benefit and scientific discovery, ensuring safety and ethics are always our highest priority.

We are pushing the boundaries across multiple domains. Our global teams offer diverse learning opportunities and varied career pathways for those driven to achieve exceptional results through collective effort.

Responsibilities

• Design, implement, train and evaluate large models and algorithms for robotic agents, making breakthroughs and unlocking new robot capabilities.
• Write software to implement research ideas and iterate quickly, working effectively with a large collaborative team with fast-paced agendas to meet ambitious research goals.
• Develop methodologies and design and conduct experiments for incorporating scalable data sources, especially human data with or without capture devices into our robotics foundation models.
• Leverage broader expertise to participate in a wide variety of research, including learning from simulation, reinforcement learning, learning from demonstrations, vision-language-action models, transformers, video generation, robot control, humanoid robots and more.
• Report and present research findings clearly and efficiently both internally and externally.

Google is proud to be an equal opportunity workplace and is 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. See also Google's EEO Policy and EEO is the Law. If you have a disability or special need that requires accommodation, please let us know by completing our Accommodations for Applicants form .