{"id":760493,"url":"https://alion.io/job/origin-founding-ai-research-engineer-robot-learning","title":"Founding AI Research Engineer - Robot Learning","company":{"id":686527,"name":"Origin","domain":"origin.tech","url":"https://alion.io/company/origin-7","size_band":"51-200","is_staffing_agency":false,"employer_type":"direct","is_intermediary":false,"listed_via":null,"ats_vendor":"Workable","truth_index":{"grade":"A","score":100,"open_postings":17,"ghost_share":0,"stale_share":0,"repost_share":0,"time_to_fill_p50_days":17,"computed_at":"2026-10-31T05:58:55Z"}},"role":"Robotics","role_family":"Robotics","seniority":null,"employment_type":"full_time","work_mode":"on_site","remote_scope":null,"remote_scope_basis":null,"remote_working_hours":null,"hiring_geo_confidence":"structured","locations":["San Francisco, United States"],"countries":["US"],"hiring_countries":[],"hiring_countries_total":0,"salary":null,"salary_estimate":{"min_usd":128000,"max_usd":308000,"period":"year","method":"role_country_seniority_unknown","sample_n":590},"experience_years_min":null,"visa_sponsorship":false,"relocation_package":false,"has_equity":false,"technologies":[{"name":"AI Agents","optional":false},{"name":"Anomaly Detection","optional":false},{"name":"CUDA","optional":false},{"name":"Fine-tuning","optional":false},{"name":"Imitation Learning","optional":false},{"name":"Isaac Sim","optional":false},{"name":"ONNX","optional":false},{"name":"OpenVLA","optional":false},{"name":"Physical AI","optional":false},{"name":"Python","optional":false},{"name":"PyTorch","optional":false},{"name":"ROS2","optional":false},{"name":"Sim-to-Real","optional":false},{"name":"Teleoperation","optional":false},{"name":"TensorRT","optional":false},{"name":"Vision-Language-Action","optional":false},{"name":"World Models","optional":false}],"status":"live","first_seen_at":"2026-10-23T08:53:07Z","employer_posted_date":"2026-10-23","last_verified_at":"2026-10-31T16:35:58Z","board_verified":true,"closed_at":null,"days_open":8,"trust":{"level":"ok","repost_count":1,"flags":[],"days_open":7},"description":"About Origin\nOrigin is building Physical AI for the built world - starting with autonomous robots for Interior Construction. We are building Construction Action Models which allows our modular robots to learn, adapt and work in unstructured construction job site.\nOur robots are already deployed on live sites in New York City, helping accelerate schedules for large-scale commercial projects while improving safety and predictability on the job site. Backed by Tier-1 investors, Origin is working to close the gap between America’s surging demand for housing, data centers, and manufacturing infrastructure, and the construction industry’s growing labor shortage.\nThe Role\nOur system runs a Multi Agent Action Expert architecture: classical precision algorithms orchestrated alongside learned policies. The job is systematically expanding the learned components while keeping the system production-safe. You own the full lifecycle of learned components on OG-1: from data collection and model training through edge deployment on Jetson AGX Orin. Every research project will have a deployment milestone. This is not a lab position.\nWhat You Will Do\nTrain and deploy VLA models for contact-rich manipulation using our imitation learning infrastructure.\nBuild the data flywheel: teleoperation pipelines (GELLO, SpaceMouse, VR), DAgger-style online correction, demonstration curation.\nResearch and prototype world models for surface state prediction, spray dynamics, and anomaly detection.\nDesign offline evaluation metrics that predict real-world finishing quality before deployment.\nOptimize models for edge: TensorRT compilation, latency profiling, memory budgeting on dual Jetson AGX Orin.\nDesign the interface where learned policies propose actions and deterministic safety layers enforce constraints.\nRequirements\nBS/MS/PhD in CS, Robotics, ML, or equivalent experience shipping learned systems on physical robots.\nStrong Python and PyTorch; comfort modifying research codebases (you'll work directly with open-source VLA implementations).\nExperience in at least two of: imitation learning, RL, vision-language models, robot learning from demonstration, sim-to-real.\nTrack record deploying ML on real hardware: not just training to convergence, but debugging why the policy fails on the actual robot.\nWorking knowledge of ROS2 or equivalent robotics middleware.\nExperience working with Simulation Systems like Isaac Sim. \nGPU profiling and optimization (TensorRT, ONNX, CUDA); you understand why 200ms policy latency kills contact control.\nStrong Plus\nHands-on with VLA architectures (π0/π0.5, OpenVLA, RT-2, Octo) or foundation model fine-tuning for robotics.\nTeleoperation data collection and DAgger/HG-DAgger pipelines.\nWorld model architectures (DreamerV3, V-JEPA, latent dynamics models).\nConstruction, manufacturing, or contact-rich industrial domains.\nPublications at CoRL, RSS, ICRA, NeurIPS: valued but equivalent shipped work counts.","description_format":"text","description_chars":2946,"description_truncated":false,"requirements":{"experience_years_min":null,"management_years_min":null,"team_size_min":null,"manages_managers":false,"education":{"level":"bachelor","optional":false},"security_clearance":false,"languages":[]},"benefits":[],"hiring_locations":[],"hiring_excludes":[],"relocation_offered":false,"industries":["Construction Robotics","Robotic Software & Control Systems"],"lifecycle":[{"event":"open","at":"2026-09-11T18:26:32Z"},{"event":"close","at":"2026-10-11T11:50:20Z"},{"event":"reopen","at":"2026-10-14T15:47:32Z"}],"visa":[],"liveness":{"score":79,"band":"hot","label":"Hiring now","p_open":1,"p_active":0.834,"p_room":0.945,"age_days":7,"expected_fill_days":17,"reasons":["conf:0","velocity","win:mid"],"computed_at":"2026-10-31T05:58:55Z"},"pay":null,"html_url":"https://alion.io/job/origin-founding-ai-research-engineer-robot-learning","json_url":"https://alion.io/job/origin-founding-ai-research-engineer-robot-learning.json","meta":{"generated_at":"2026-10-31T17:00:49Z","cache_seconds":300,"methodology":"https://alion.io/methodology","terms":"https://alion.io/terms","contact":"https://alion.io/contact","api":"https://alion.io/developers","about":"Alion is a live layer of people, companies and AI agents: who they are, whether they are real and active right now, what they do and how to work with them, readable by people and by agents and paid per call.","catalog":"https://alion.io/catalog.json","usage":{"tier":"crawler_verified","counted_by":"address","units_charged":1,"used_today":26606,"day_limit":null,"remaining_today":null,"minute_limit":300,"resets_at":"2026-11-01T00:00:00Z"}},"offers":[{"id":"company.slices","title":"One company in depth, by slice","status":"live","price":{"credits":0.02,"usd":0.002,"plus_per_slice":{"credits":0.05,"usd":0.005}},"unit":"per company, plus each slice with data","note":"the employer in depth","call":{"mcp_tool":"get_company","arguments":{"id":686527},"rest":"https://alion.io/mcp/rest/get_company?id=686527"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=company.slices&for=job%2Forigin-founding-ai-research-engineer-robot-learning"},{"id":"market.stats","title":"A market slice: pay, demand and time to fill","status":"live","price":{"credits":1,"usd":0.1},"unit":"per slice","note":"pay, demand and time to fill for this role and place","call":{"mcp_tool":"market_stats"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=market.stats&for=job%2Forigin-founding-ai-research-engineer-robot-learning"},{"id":"job.search","title":"Open jobs by role, technology, place, pay and visa","status":"live","price":{"credits":0.02,"usd":0.002},"unit":"per posting in a list","note":"similar open postings","call":{"mcp_tool":"search_jobs"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=job.search&for=job%2Forigin-founding-ai-research-engineer-robot-learning"},{"id":"company.verify","title":"Is this company real and active right now","status":"pilot","price":null,"unit":"per company","request":{"url":"https://alion.io/catalog/request","method":"POST","body":"{\"offer\": \"company.verify\", \"for\": \"job/origin-founding-ai-research-engineer-robot-learning\", \"note\": \"what you need it for\"}"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=company.verify&for=job%2Forigin-founding-ai-research-engineer-robot-learning"}],"agent":{"mcp":"https://alion.io/mcp/jobs","mcp_open":"https://alion.io/mcp/open","next":[{"tool":"get_job","arguments":{"id":760493}},{"tool":"search_jobs","arguments":{"company":"origin.tech","detail":"compact"}},{"tool":"match_people","arguments":{"job_id":760493},"note":"people open to offers who fit this vacancy"}],"note":"The same data through MCP tools: https://alion.io/mcp/open needs no sign-in (compact searches, postings, people); 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