AI Residency
Job description
About the role
The is a fixed-term position designed for researchers and engineers who want to work on high-impact AI and robotics problems alongside full-time 1x team members. You will own projects that ship to production robots in the field, contributing meaningfully to the systems that make NEO smarter during your residency term. Your work will directly accelerate 1x's AI development by applying cutting-edge research to real product problems, whether that means building evaluation infrastructure, scaling data pipelines, improving the data engine, or deploying new capabilities to robots at customer sites. You will be embedded in the team and treated as a full contributor, owning projects, shipping code, and having direct impact on deployed robotic systems within your residency term. This is not an internship where you build toy demos; you will contribute meaningfully to the systems that make NEO smarter, and your work will reach hardware in homes and warehouses. If you have spent your career working on problems that matter and want to see them actually reach the world, this is that moment and this is where you will thrive. We are excited to meet you if this excites you.
Key facts
What you'll do
Apply research-level ideas to production impact by translating techniques from the AI and robotics literature into capabilities or infrastructure that ships on real robots.
Build or meaningfully improve components of the data engine, including front-end tooling for log review and labeling, back-end systems for data cleaning, and evaluation benchmarks for open-source models on robotics tasks.
Scale solutions using fleet data by contributing to pipelines and systems that improve with more robot experience, not just more hand-labeled data.
Deploy at least one new capability or infrastructure improvement to robots at customer sites before the residency term ends.
Prototype rapidly by moving quickly from idea to working prototype, then caring enough about quality to bring it the rest of the way to something deployable.
Read a paper and implement its key ideas, but also write tested, maintainable code that others can build on; comfortable in both research and engineering modes.
Pick up new codebases, tools, and problem domains quickly, identifying the highest-leverage contribution and starting to make progress without waiting for a detailed spec.
Work collaboratively alongside full-time engineers and researchers, communicating progress and blockers clearly, and contributing to the team's velocity as well as your own projects.
Use simulation infrastructure, data management, model evaluation, and capability deployment as core tools in your day-to-day work.
Treat your charter as an owner of real systems, shipping code and having direct impact on deployed robotic systems within your residency term.
Drive the data engine forward with front-end tooling for log review and labeling, and robust back-end systems for data cleaning.
Leverage fleet data to scale solutions and ensure the robotics system improves with accumulated robot experience over time.
Evaluate open-source models on robotics tasks using benchmarks you build and maintain as part of the data engine.
Collaborate closely with the full-time 1x team to integrate your work into production robot deployments at customer sites.
Requirements
Bachelor's degree in Computer Science or equivalent; graduate students in ML or robotics strongly preferred.
Proficiency with large Python codebases, experience writing tests, and familiarity with deep learning frameworks (PyTorch, TensorFlow, or JAX).
Demonstrated ability to prototype ideas independently and rapidly - a portfolio of projects, research, or open-source work is a strong signal.
Experience training large-scale ML models (visual foundation models, LLMs, generative models) or publishing at top ML conferences.
Minimum Requirements must be met without exception; these eligibility and hard bars are non-negotiable for consideration.
You must be able to prove your experience with large-scale model training and evaluation through concrete artifacts or publications.
Your portfolio should clearly demonstrate independent prototyping capability and rapid iteration on complex problems.
Nice to have
Experience with systems programming and scalable data infrastructure.
Familiarity with robotics simulation platforms (Isaac Sim, MuJoCo) or robot middleware (ROS).
Prior research or engineering experience at the intersection of AI and physical systems.
Practical notes
This is a 3-6 month fixed-term AI Residency.
Compensation is $10,000 per month.
Equal Opportunity Employer: 1X is an Equal Opportunity Employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, gender, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, national origin, ancestry, citizenship, age, marital status, medical condition, genetic information, disability, military or veteran status, or any other characteristic protected under applicable federal, state, or local law.