Data Scientist II: AI for Autonomous Space Systems

NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory; United States; On-site; USD 128,000 - 138,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Health, dental, vision plans

Wellbeing and retirement plans

Paid time off

Flexible schedule

Parental leave

Job summary

NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, seeks engineers to advance autonomous space systems using AI technologies. You will contribute to scheduling, planning, and resource allocation across ground and flight operations for missions like ECOSTRESS, OCO‑3, EMIT, NISAR, and M2020.

The role emphasizes building planning and optimization algorithms, ML interpretation of remote sensing imagery, and large‑model pipelines, with opportunities to lead in AI applications for spacecraft

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree or higher in CS or related field with 3+ years of related experience; Master’s with 1+ year; or PhD.
• Broad knowledge in software development, AI, operations research, or resource allocation mechanisms.
• Experience programming in Rust, C++, C, Python, or Java.
• Background in AI and/or operations research techniques with verifiable artifacts.
• Experience with large models and DL pipelines (training/inference).
• Experience with large models (VLM/LLM/Foundation models) including training, deployment, Compression.

Responsibilities

• Develop planning, scheduling, resource allocation, and execution algorithms for autonomous systems.
• Develop search-based, constraint-based, and optimization systems for large-scale planning.
• Develop machine learning systems for remote sensing imagery interpretation and multi-modal reasoning.

Skills

Rust

C++

C

Python

Java

Education

Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science or related discipline

Master’s degree in related discipline

PhD in related discipline

Job description

NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, seeks engineers to advance autonomous space systems using AI technologies. You will contribute to scheduling, planning, and resource allocation across ground and flight operations for missions like ECOSTRESS, OCO‑3, EMIT, NISAR, and M2020.

The role emphasizes building planning and optimization algorithms, ML interpretation of remote sensing imagery, and large‑model pipelines, with opportunities to lead in AI applications for spacecraft