---
title: 'Data Collection Lab Manager at Generalist'
canonical: 'https://feeny.ai/job/data-collection-lab-manager-generalist-boston-dr2gxr4h4snk'
type: 'job'
last_seen: '2026-09-09'
---

# Data Collection Lab Manager at Generalist

- **Company:** Generalist
- **Location:** Boston, MA
- **Compensation:** $40–$50/hr
- **Employment:** contract
- **Work type:** onsite
- **Posted:** 2026-05-25
- **Last confirmed live:** 2026-09-09
- **Apply:** https://jobs.ashbyhq.com/generalist/4e4aab28-fa5c-4809-947b-d42593636107/application

**Skills:** Experience with QA or operational quality systems, Familiarity with AI/ML data operations, Human-in-the-loop workflows

> Lead and evolve on-site data collection operations, managing teams, processes, and hardware to deliver high-quality data for model development. Own QA, inventory, and operational systems while recruiting and mentoring staff in a fast-paced environment.

## Job description

## ABOUT GENERALIST

At Generalist, we are on a mission to build general intelligence for the physical world and make it useful to everyone. We believe the industries and homes of the future will depend on humans and machines working together in new ways. Robots can help us build more and get more done.

We build embodied foundation models, starting with a focus on dexterity. This requires advancing the frontiers of data, models, and hardware, to enable robots to intelligently interact with the physical world.

The company embraces both large-scale AI and robotics as core to its DNA. Our team of researchers, roboticists, and company builders come from OpenAI, Boston Dynamics, Google DeepMind, and other frontier labs—with a track record of shipping AI breakthroughs. Before Generalist, we pioneered large embodied multimodal models and vision-language-action models (PaLM-E, https://research.google/blog/palm-e-an-embodied-multimodal-language-model/ RT-2 https://deepmind.google/blog/rt-2-new-model-translates-vision-and-language-into-action/, Gemini Robotics https://deepmind.google/models/gemini-robotics/), launched and scaled ChatGPT https://chatgpt.com/ and GPT-4 https://openai.com/index/gpt-4-research/ to hundreds of millions of users, engineered the foundations of autonomous driving, built next-generation robots (Atlas https://bostondynamics.com/atlas/, Spot https://bostondynamics.com/products/spot/, Stretch https://bostondynamics.com/products/stretch/) and pushed the limits of what they can do (from parkour https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tF4DML7FIWk to manipulation https://bostondynamics.com/blog/large-behavior-models-atlas-find-new-footing/, and testing robustness https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aFuA50H9uek).

We are an equal opportunity employer, and we do not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, color, national origin, sex, sexual orientation, age, veteran status, disability, genetic information, or other applicable legally protected characteristic.

Data Collection Lab Manager (Shift Leader)

Generalist is looking for a Data Collection Lab Manager to lead and evolve the operations behind our on-site data collection efforts.

You’ll act as a shift leader to own the systems, processes, and team responsible for delivering high-quality data that supports model development across the organization. This is a highly operational, hands-on , in-lab role for someone who enjoys building structure in ambiguous environments, improving systems over time, and leading teams with high standards and accountability.

The right person for this role is equally comfortable jumping into operational problems, managing people, improving process quality, and building the infrastructure needed to scale reliably.

## Responsibilities

Lab Operations:

- Own the refinement and execution of day-to-day DataLab operations and ensure reliable, high-quality data delivery
- Manage task rollout and retirement scheduling based on organizational priorities
- Establish and improve QA processes to maintain high data quality standards
- Identify operational bottlenecks and implement scalable process improvements
- Oversee device and hardware management to ensure uninterrupted lab operations
- Manage lab inventory including ordering, receiving, storage, distribution, and removal
- Maintain operational oversight of data custody, tracking, reporting, and issue investigation
- Build and maintain operational systems, trackers, reporting cadences, and documentation

Team Leadership:

- Recruit, hire, and onboard high-performing data collection staff
- Support and manage lab leads in day-to-day operational execution
- Coach, mentor, and develop DataLab employees
- Build a strong operational culture centered around ownership, reliability, and continuous improvement
- Help define team structure and operational processes as organizational needs evolve

Qualifications:

- 5+ years of experience in high-performance operational environments with significant ownership and accountability
- Experience managing teams in fast-moving or semi-structured organizations
- Strong operational instincts and attention to detail
- Proven ability to build processes and improve systems in ambiguous environments
- Excellent written and verbal communication skills
- Strong interpersonal and people leadership skills
- Comfortable using metrics, operational reporting, and process tracking to drive decisions
- High reliability, strong follow-through, and a consistent ownership mindset

Nice to Have:

- Experience managing physical operations, labs, logistics, or production environments
- Experience with QA or operational quality systems
- Startup experience
- Familiarity with AI/ML data operations or human-in-the-loop workflows

## About Generalist

## Company Overview
- **One-liner**: Generalist is a frontier AI research and product company building general-purpose intelligence for the physical world through embodied foundation models for robots.
- **Entity Type**: Private (Series A)
- **Headquarters**: San Mateo, California, United States
- **Founded**: 2024
- **Founders**: Pete Florence (Co-Founder & CEO), Andy Zeng (Co-Founder & Chief Scientist)

## Core Business
- **Primary industry**: Robotics Engineering, Artificial Intelligence, Embodied AI
- **Target customers**: B2B – enterprises operating factories, warehouses, laboratories, restaurants, and logistics centers; eventually homes.
- **Mission**: “Make general-purpose robots a reality. We build embodied foundation models for the physical world.”

## Products & Services
- **GEN-1**: General-purpose AI model for robotics that achieves ~99% average success rate on tasks (vs. 64% for prior state-of-the-art) and completes tasks roughly 3x faster. Trained on half a million hours of real-world data collected via low-cost wearable devices. Available to early-access partners as a model or API. [therobotreport.com](https://www.therobotreport.com/generalist-introduces-gen-1-general-purpose-model-for-physical-ai/)
- **GEN-0**: Previous generation model that demonstrated scaling laws in robotics. Used as the foundation for GEN-1.
- **Data Collection Devices**: Proprietary low-cost wearable hardware that captures human activities at scale, enabling pretraining without large teleoperation or simulation datasets.

## Market Standing
- **Valuation**: Not publicly available
- **Key Metric**: Total Funding – $128M (Series A closed March 2025; earlier seed round led by NVentures) [linkedin.com](https://www.linkedin.com/company/generalistai)
- **Notable Investors/Partners**: NVentures (seed lead); Board Director Ellen Chisa. Series A investor not named in public data.
- **Growth Signals**: Headcount grew 325% YoY to 42 employees. GEN-1 model released five months after GEN-0, with production-level reliability. Early-access partnerships underway. [linkedin.com](https://www.linkedin.com/company/generalistai)

## Competitive Advantages
- **Model performance**: GEN-1 achieves 99% average success rate across tasks like kitting auto parts, folding T-shirts, packing phones – a step change from sub-70% success by previous models.
- **Data efficiency**: Trained primarily on human demonstration data (wearable devices) rather than expensive robot teleoperation data; can match previous models with 10x less task-specific data.
- **Algorithmic innovations**: Custom training kernels, paged attention for real-time inference, Harmonic Reasoning, and RL post-training enable improvisation and recovery from unexpected scenarios.
- **Team pedigree**: Founders and key hires from OpenAI, Google DeepMind, and Boston Dynamics – bringing experience from ChatGPT, GPT-4, PaLM-E, RT-2, Gemini Robotics, Atlas, Spot, and Stretch.

## Strategic Focus
- Current priorities: Scale GEN-1’s embodied foundation model to master more complex physical tasks, expand into economically valuable settings (manufacturing, logistics, healthcare), and build the data infrastructure needed for general-purpose robots. The company is “accelerating the next phase of factories, homes, and the broader physical world.”

## Why Work Here
- **Culture**: Tight-knit, research-forward environment with a mix of AI and hardware engineering. On-site presence in San Francisco (SFO) and Boston (BOS). [generalistai.com/careers](https://jobs.ashbyhq.com/generalist)
- **Remote/Hybrid Policy**: All open positions are listed as “On-site” (no remote or hybrid options).
- **Notable Perks**: Not explicitly disclosed, but the startup’s rapid growth and $128M funding suggest competitive compensation and equity. The team consists of leading roboticists and AI researchers, offering exposure to cutting-edge work.
- **Engineering Culture**: Heavy emphasis on technical staff (Software Engineers in ML Infra, Robotics Controls, ML Optimization, Infrastructure; Research Scientists in pretraining and post-training). Roles include hands-on robot operation and systems building.

## Sources
1. [generalistai.com](https://generalistai.com/)
2. [generalistai.com/careers](https://jobs.ashbyhq.com/generalist)
3. [generalistai.com/about](https://generalistai.com/about)
4. [linkedin.com](https://www.linkedin.com/company/generalistai)
5. [therobotreport.com](https://www.therobotreport.com/generalist-introduces-gen-1-general-purpose-model-for-physical-ai/)

## Other roles at Generalist

- [Research Scientist: Post-Training](https://feeny.ai/job/research-scientist-post-training-generalist-san-mateo-vrnttp54gr4z) — San Mateo, CA / Somerville, MA
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- [Electrical Engineer](https://feeny.ai/job/electrical-engineer-generalist-san-mateo-x985d69q4w17) — San Mateo, CA / Somerville, MA
- [Research Assistant](https://feeny.ai/job/research-assistant-generalist-san-mateo-1ahfzy22gp7s) — San Mateo, CA / Somerville, MA
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