Ultra (ultra.tech) Logo

Ultra (ultra.tech)

Research Scientist

Reposted One Month Ago
Be an Early Applicant
In-Office
Brooklyn, NY, USA
200K-350K Annually
Mid level
In-Office
Brooklyn, NY, USA
200K-350K Annually
Mid level
Conduct research to improve robot foundation models for fast, reliable task learning and execution. Post-train and benchmark models, perform failure analysis, and integrate models into production robotics stacks for deployment at customer sites.
The summary above was generated by AI
About Ultra
Ultra builds industrial AI robots that are working in the real world today. Our robots automate mission-critical warehouse labor end-to-end, starting with e-commerce order packaging. We deploy fast, learn from real production data, and iterate aggressively. We already have a quickly growing number of revenue-generating robots operating in U.S. warehouses, and are now scaling towards thousands of deployments over the next few years. Our mission is simple: build the world's most useful and deployable robot.

WARNING: Robotics is not for the faint of heart. There are no silver bullets here. It is tiresome, unglamorous, and at times brutal work. The only way out is through, and the only way through is treacherous and unknown. Success will require teamwork - so we are building a world-class team to tackle some of the most exciting problems out there. We hope you join us.
About the role
We are looking for high-impact researchers and engineers to help bridge the gap between robot foundation models and production robot deployment. Speed and reliability are the two metrics that matter the most for industrial customers, yet most robot models struggle on both. You will post-train robot foundation models and do new research to hill climb task performance in our research lab and at real customer deployments. 

What You’ll Do
  • Improve our robots’ ability to quickly learn new tasks and to execute those tasks quickly and reliably
  • Lead research efforts around improving our models’ robustness and performance for real world tasks
  • Integrate trained models with our production robotics stack and work with deployment teams to scale models across real customer sites

Who You Are
  • Have experience with fine-tuning large models for downstream tasks (IL, RL, etc.)
  • Operate with high agency and are able to own significant research efforts end to end
  • Care deeply about evaluation, benchmarking, and failure analysis
  • A generalist who enjoys getting your hands dirty across the whole stack ML stack 
  • Passionate about seeing robots make an impact in the real world

Bonus Points
  • Experience applying ML to robotics, with hands-on robot experience
  • MS/PhD in Computer Science, Machine Learning, Robotics, or a related field

Expected Compensation
$200,000 - $350,000/annual salary + equity + benefits

This compensation range may be inclusive of several career levels at Ultra and will be narrowed during the interview process based on the candidate’s experience and qualifications. Adjustments outside of this range may be considered for candidates whose qualifications significantly differ from those outlined in the job description.
Equal Employment Opportunity Statement
We are an Equal Opportunity Employer. We do not discriminate based on race, religion, color, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, age, marital status, veteran status, or disability status. We are committed to creating a diverse and inclusive environment and encourage applicants from all backgrounds to apply.

Ultra (ultra.tech) New York, New York, USA Office

New York, New York, United States, 11232 2405

Similar Jobs

10 Days Ago
In-Office
New York, NY, USA
195K-400K Annually
Entry level
195K-400K Annually
Entry level
AdTech • Artificial Intelligence
Conduct applied AI research spanning multimodal intelligence, recommendation, ranking, prediction, foundation models, agents, and decision-making. Formulate product-driven research problems, design rigorous experiments, develop models and datasets, create evaluations, and translate successful methods into production systems. Collaborate with engineering and product teams to improve campaign strategies, creator-brand matching, content understanding, and marketplace outcomes.
Top Skills: Artificial IntelligenceCausal InferenceFine-TuningFoundation ModelsLarge Language ModelsMachine LearningMultimodal LearningOptimizationPost-TrainingRanking ModelsRecommendation SystemsReinforcement LearningRepresentation LearningRetrieval-Augmented Generation
3 Days Ago
Hybrid
New York, NY, USA
Entry level
Entry level
Financial Services
Conduct deep AI and quantitative research for electronic trading by pre-training Transformer and time-series foundation models on large-scale market data. Develop representations, objectives, architectures, distributed training methods, evaluation protocols, and model-serving components. Fine-tune models for alpha generation, pricing, market making, execution, and risk management while studying scaling laws, transferability, robustness, data efficiency, latency, and economically meaningful trading outcomes.
Top Skills: Distributed TrainingJaxLarge-Scale Data PipelinesMixed-Precision TrainingModel ServingPyTorchTime-Series Foundation ModelsTransformer Architectures
3 Days Ago
Hybrid
New York, NY, USA
Junior
Junior
Financial Services
Conducts research on algorithms for large language models and agentic AI systems, improving learning efficiency, inference performance, accuracy, latency, and compute cost. Develops theoretical foundations, implements performant software, validates methods at scale, solves problems for internal teams, publishes findings, presents research, and contributes to intellectual property protection.
Top Skills: CC++CudaNsightPythonTriton

What you need to know about the NYC Tech Scene

As the undisputed financial capital of the world, New York City is an epicenter of startup funding activity. The city has a thriving fintech scene and is a major player in verticals ranging from AI to biotech, cybersecurity and digital media. It also has universities like NYU, Columbia and Cornell Tech attracting students and researchers from across the globe, providing the ecosystem with a constant influx of world-class talent. And its East Coast location and three international airports make it a perfect spot for European companies establishing a foothold in the United States.

Key Facts About NYC Tech

  • Number of Tech Workers: 549,200; 6% of overall workforce (2024 CompTIA survey)
  • Major Tech Employers: Capgemini, Bloomberg, IBM, Spotify
  • Key Industries: Artificial intelligence, Fintech
  • Funding Landscape: $25.5 billion in venture capital funding in 2024 (Pitchbook)
  • Notable Investors: Greycroft, Thrive Capital, Union Square Ventures, FirstMark Capital, Tiger Global Management, Tribeca Venture Partners, Insight Partners, Two Sigma Ventures
  • Research Centers and Universities: Columbia University, New York University, Fordham University, CUNY, AI Now Institute, Flatiron Institute, C.N. Yang Institute for Theoretical Physics, NASA Space Radiation Laboratory

Sign up now Access later

Create Free Account

Please log in or sign up to report this job.

Create Free Account