Research Scientist, PRIOR

HaylieRead Interior Design; Seattle (WA); Hybrid; USD 167,000 - 261,000; Full time

Job summary

Join a forward-thinking research team in Seattle as a Research Scientist, where you'll tackle cutting-edge challenges in computer vision, machine learning, and robotics. This role offers a unique opportunity to contribute to groundbreaking research that enhances AI capabilities and engages in collaborative projects with esteemed researchers from the University of Washington. You will have the chance to lead projects, mentor aspiring scientists, and publish your findings in top-tier conferences. If you are passionate about advancing AI for the common good and are ready to make a significant impact, this position is perfect for you.

Benefits

Generous paid vacation

Sick leave

Family leave

Collaborative work environment

Qualifications

• PhD in computer vision, machine learning, or related fields required.
• Strong publication record in AI-related areas is essential.

Responsibilities

• Work on research problems to improve vision and multimodal models.
• Lead projects, mentor interns, and publish scientific papers.

Skills

Computer Vision

Machine Learning

Natural Language Processing

Robotics

Software Engineering

Education

PhD in Computer Science or related field

Tools

PyTorch

TensorFlow

JAX

Job description

Hybrid Work Arrangement

Persons in these roles are expected to spend part of their time on-site in our Seattle offices and may occasionally work remotely from their home in the Greater Seattle area. On-site requirements vary based on position and team. If you have questions about Hybrid work arrangements for this role, please ask your recruiter.

Compensation Range: $167,030 - $260,570

Who You Are:

As a Research Scientist on our team, you’ll have the unique opportunity to work on research problems that can improve vision and multimodal models, contribute to the development of completely open foundation models, and experiment with mobile robots in the real world. You will contribute to projects similar to our recent Molmo model release (https://molmo.allenai.org/).

We are looking for applicants interested in computer vision, natural language processing, machine learning, robotics, agents, and/or embodied AI. International candidates are welcome to apply. Pay is competitive, and visa sponsorship is available.

We collaborate frequently with researchers on other Ai2 teams focused on natural language processing and HCI, among others. Our main office has close ties and unique access to researchers at the University of Washington, only 1.5 miles away. Researchers excited about such internal and external collaborations are encouraged to apply.

Research Scientists in the PRIOR team will work on multiple exciting research projects in the above areas, but will also have the opportunity to contribute and engage in a variety of other activities critical to our research and mission. These include opportunities to lead select projects, mentor interns and pre-doctoral candidates, author and present scientific papers and presentations for peer-reviewed journals and conferences, and collaborate with researchers at other organizations including universities.

We are considering applications on a rolling basis. The deadline of the first round of applications is on March 15th, 2025.

Ai2’s Perceptual Reasoning and Interaction Research team (PRIOR) is looking for strong researchers to join our team. PRIOR seeks to advance computer vision to create AI systems that see, explore, learn, reason, and interact with the world.

Research Areas:

• Embodied AI / Robotics - Enable agents that safely navigate, manipulate objects, and follow instructions in simulation and in the real world (w/ real robots).
• Language & Vision - Make vision and language models more general, efficient, and capable.
• Agents - Develop multimodal agents that automate real user tasks.
• AI for Common Good - Apply AI to help address global challenges such as climate change, illegal fishing, and wildlife poaching.

We regularly publish in high-profile conferences and journals in computer vision (CVPR, ICCV, ECCV), robotics (CoRL, RSS, IROS, ICRA), machine learning (e.g., NeurIPS, ICLR), NLP (e.g., ACL, EMNLP), amongst other areas.

At Ai2, you will be working with world-class AI researchers and talented software engineers. We perform team-based, ambitious research, with a mandate to strive for big breakthroughs, not just incremental progress, in an exciting and interactive workplace.

All scientists have the opportunity to mentor interns (and other students) and will participate directly in Ai2's groundbreaking work. There are no restrictions on publications. Each of our research teams has a specific application for interested candidates, so please familiarize yourself with our projects and apply to the specific team(s) that best match your skills and interests. Here are the general research topics we work on:

• Robotics
• MLLMs and LLMs
• Web Agents
• Language and Vision
• Visual reasoning
• Representation learning
• Image and video generation
• Image and video editing
• And more …

What You’ll Need:

Qualifications:

• A strong foundation (typically PhD level) in one or more of the following areas: computer vision, machine learning, (M-)LLMs, foundation models, robotics, embodied AI, natural language processing, knowledge representation and reasoning, and agents.
• A strong publication record in AI-related areas. Example venues include CVPR, ICCV, ECCV, NeurIPS, ICLR, ICML, CoRL, RSS, ICRA, IROS, ACL, EMNLP, etc. Contributions to research communities (e.g. workshop organization, tutorials) are a plus.
• Strong software engineering skills. Experience with deep learning frameworks (e.g. PyTorch, Tensorflow, Jax). Bonus qualifications:
• Research experience in related areas like training dynamics, efficiency, data curation, large-scale multi-node training, multimodal model debugging, post-training methods (e.g., SFT, RLHF, DPO, PPO), reinforcement learning, imitation learning, real-world robot experimentation, simulation-based training, among others.
• Contributions to open-source research libraries (e.g. AllenNLP, AllenAct, Ai2-THOR) are a plus.

Physical Demands and Work Environment:

The physical demands described here are representative of those that must be met by a team member to successfully perform the essential functions of this position. Reasonable accommodations may be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform the functions.

• Must be able to remain in a stationary position for long periods of time.
• The ability to communicate information and ideas so others will understand. Must be able to exchange accurate information in these situations.
• The ability to observe details at close range.

A Little More About AI2:

The Allen Institute for Artificial Intelligence is a non-profit research institute in Seattle founded by Paul Allen. The core mission of AI2 is to contribute to humanity through high-impact research in artificial intelligence.

AI2 values diversity and inclusion, emphasizing a healthy work/life balance. We offer generous paid vacation and sick leave as well as family leave. We are collaborative and transparent, considering ourselves a team with a common purpose.

AI2 is proud to be an Equal Opportunity employer. We do not discriminate based upon race, religion, color, national origin, sex (including pregnancy, childbirth, or related medical conditions), sexual orientation, gender, gender identity, gender expression, transgender status, sexual stereotypes, age, status as a protected veteran, status as an individual with a disability, or other applicable legally protected characteristics.

We are committed to providing reasonable accommodations to employees and applicants with disabilities to the full extent required by the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). If you feel you need a reasonable accommodation pursuant to the ADA, you are encouraged to contact us at [e-mail].

Note: This job description in no way states or implies that these are the only duties to be performed by the team members(s) of this position. Team members will be required to follow any other job-related instructions and to perform any other job-related duties requested by any person authorized to give instructions or assignments.

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