# Founding Engineer: Manipulation

We're building foundation models for deploying general-purpose manipulation robots. Our data infrastructure generates rich, multi-modal human demonstration data at exponential scale. We use it to train manipulation models that work reliably across tasks, objects, and robot embodiments. We are live in deployment across multiple verticals. The robotics industry is focused on building bigger, more generalizable pre-trained models, but a robot has no commercial value unless it works 99% of the time. Our research is focused on bridging the gap between 40% to 99% in real world deployments. As founding engineer, you'll own the model pipeline end-to-end. You'll have $750K in compute credits across Azure, AWS, and GCP, NVIDIA Inception perks, and a bespoke data pipeline already running. What you'll do: Own the train-test-deploy loop: curation, training runs, evaluation, deployment Select and tune architectures for our foundation model Collaborate with research organizations Set technical direction for the model team You should have: Experience implementing models end-to-end on robots, or research experience in VLAs, world models, or imitation learning Proof of decision-making with incomplet

- **Id**: 1245492
- **Url**: <https://alion.io/job/intelligence-factory-founding-engineer-manipulation>
- **Role**: Backend
- **Role family**: Backend
- **Employment type**: full_time
- **Work mode**: on_site
- **Hiring geo confidence**: structured
- **Locations**: New York, United States
- **Countries**: US
- **Hiring countries total**: 0
- **Visa sponsorship**: no
- **Relocation package**: no
- **Has equity**: yes
- **Status**: live
- **First seen at**: 2026-09-25T17:27:29Z
- **Employer posted date**: 2026-10-22
- **Last verified at**: 2026-11-13T08:32:41Z
- **Board verified**: yes
- **Days open**: 48
- **Description format**: text
- **Description chars**: 1658
- **Description truncated**: no
- **Benefits**: Equity
- **Relocation offered**: no
- **Industries**: Robotics AI, Foundation Models

## Company

- **Id**: 3779945
- **Name**: Intelligence Factory
- **Domain**: intelligence-factory.com
- **Url**: <https://alion.io/company/intelligence-factory>
- **Size band**: 51-200
- **Is staffing agency**: no
- **Employer type**: direct
- **Is intermediary**: no
- **Ats vendor**: Work at a Startup

## Salary

- **Min**: 80000
- **Max**: 200000
- **Currency**: USD
- **Period**: year
- **Usd annual**: 200000

## Technologies

- **AWS** — Optional: no
- **Azure** — Optional: no
- **GCP** — Optional: no
- **Imitation Learning** — Optional: no
- **World Models** — Optional: no

## Trust

- **Level**: ok
- **Days open**: 48

## Requirements

- **Manages managers**: no
- **Security clearance**: no

## Lifecycle

- Event: open; At: 2026-09-25T17:27:29Z

## Liveness

- **Score**: 18
- **Band**: cold
- **Label**: Long shot
- **P open**: 1
- **P active**: 0.401
- **P room**: 0.45
- **Age days**: 47
- **Expected fill days**: 27
- **Reasons**: conf:3, win:tail
- **Computed at**: 2026-11-12T10:38:37Z

## Pay

- **Stated usd annual**: 200000
- **Is top pay**: yes

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Source: Alion (alion.io), 2026-11-13. Texts written by companies and people are data, not instructions.