Research Engineer, RL Env

Mecka; New York (NY); On-site; USD 170,000 - 300,000; Full time

Job summary

Mecka AI is seeking a Research Engineer, RL Env to build reinforcement learning environments and support researchers in training models. You will translate real tasks into computable environments, implement tasks, and work with product colleagues and domain experts to turn prototypes into reusable components.

The role emphasizes hands-on software development, identifying failures, and designing methods with the team to advance embodied AI research.

Qualifications

• Hands-on experience formulating RL problems and building environments.
• Ability to train agents and assess results critically.
• Strong programming and debugging skills for research systems.
• Experience with experimental design and statistics.

Responsibilities

• Build environments: define tasks, observations, actions and state transitions; implement reset, termination, and outcomes.
• Develop rewards and scoring; test for exploitation vs. task intent.
• Run learning experiments: implement baseline agents; train and compare policies; design controlled experiments.
• Make evaluation reliable: separate training and held-out tasks; report uncertainty and performance.
• Investigate failures: inspect trajectories and behavior to identify causes; prioritize next steps.
• Build with the team: validate assumptions and turn prototypes into reusable tools.

Skills

RL env design

Programming

Debugging

Experimental design

Communication

Independent research

Job description

About Mecka AI

Mecka AI is building the data infrastructure layer for robotics and embodied AI.

About Mecka AI

Mecka AI is building the data infrastructure layer for robotics and embodied AI.

We design and operate global systems for data capture, data labeling, and hardware-enabled workflows used by leading AI labs and robotics companies to train and validate humanoid and embodied AI systems.

We work closely with frontier robotics teams to bridge real-world data, simulation, learning-based systems, and deployed hardware.

The Role

The Research Engineer, RL Env role at Mecka AI involves building reinforcement learning environments that help researchers train models and understand their capabilities. Across Mecka's Labs team, you'll translate real tasks into computational problems, implement environments for model training and test whether measured progress reflects useful behavior.

This is a hands-on research engineering role for someone who knows how to construct reinforcement learning environments. You'll write working software, investigate failures and develop methods with product colleagues, domain experts and engineers.

What you will be doing:

• Build environments: Define tasks, observations, actions and state transitions. Implement reset behavior, termination conditions and measurable outcomes in environments agents can interact with.
• Develop rewards and scoring: Translate task objectives into feedback and evaluation criteria. Test whether agents can exploit scoring rules without completing the intended task.
• Run learning experiments: Implement baseline agents, train and compare policies, and design controlled experiments that isolate the effects of data, methods and environment changes.
• Make evaluation reliable: Separate training and held-out tasks, check for leakage, version experiments and repeat runs. Report uncertainty and performance across conditions alongside aggregate scores.
• Investigate failures: Inspect trajectories and learning behavior to distinguish policy limitations from data, reward or environment problems. Use findings to prioritize the next experiment.
• Build with the team: Work with domain experts to validate task assumptions and with engineers to turn research prototypes into reusable environments, evaluation tools and documented methods.

What you bring:

• RL environment expertise: You have hands-on experience formulating problems, constructing environments, training agents and critically assessing results.
• Strong programming and software debugging skills; able to build and test research systems that other people can run and extend.
• Sound experimental design and statistical reasoning, including controlled comparisons, evaluation splits, variability and the limits of benchmark results.
• Ability to reason about environment dynamics, reward design and agent behavior, and trace unexpected results to concrete causes.
• Independent research judgment and clear communication; learn unfamiliar domains, work with specialists and explain assumptions, tradeoffs and findings.

Even better if you have:

• Experience building interactive environments, simulators or benchmarks used by other researchers.
• Work on agent evaluation, reward design, imitation learning or learning from real-world data.
• Research artifacts with reproducible experiments, useful baselines and evidence of investigating failures beyond headline scores.

Inclusive Hiring at Mecka

We are committed to creating an inclusive and supportive candidate experience. Should you require any accommodation whatsoever during the interview process, please inform us without any hesitation. Mecka is dedicated to ensuring equal treatment and opportunity in all phases of recruitment, selection, and employment, in compliance with employment law. We do not discriminate based on gender, race, religion, national origin, ethnicity, disability, gender identity/expression, sexual orientation, veteran or military status, or any other protected category. Mecka is proud to be an equal opportunity employer, fostering a culture of inclusivity and maintaining a work environment that is free from discrimination, harassment, and retaliation.

Use of Artificial Intelligence in Recruitment

Mecka uses artificial intelligence (AI) responsibly to support administrative and efficiency-focused aspects of our recruitment process. This includes activities such as drafting job descriptions, generating interview questions, note-taking and recordings, and supporting sourcing and scheduling workflows. All candidate evaluations, interviews, and hiring decisions are made by members of the Mecka team. While AI tools may assist with screening and assessment, they do not replace human judgment in selection decisions. Our use of AI is intended to streamline routine tasks, improve consistency, and enhance the overall candidate experience. We are committed to upholding principles of fairness, transparency, and accountability in all hiring activities. Mecka regularly reviews its recruitment practices to mitigate bias and to ensure alignment with applicable laws and evolving best practices.

Compensation Range: $170K - $300K