Research Scientist / Research Engineer (Intern) at Ultra (Brooklyn, NY)
Ultra· Brooklyn, NY·
Role details
Work type
Onsite
Employment
Full-Time
Job description
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
Why work at Ultra
- Early‑stage impact: Join a YC‑backed startup founded by three‑time entrepreneurs (previously founded Layer By Layer, Voodoo Manufacturing) with a decade of collaboration.
- Fast‑paced, hands‑on culture: Engineers and researchers directly own firmware, hardware, ML models, and deployment – from design to field support.
- Real‑world robotics: Work on robots that are already generating revenue in customer warehouses, not just lab prototypes.
- Growth trajectory: 333% headcount growth in the past year, with ambitious plans to scale from 19 to hundreds of employees.
- Location & flexibility: Based in New York City; roles span HQ (assembly, testing, R&D) and field deployment across the US.
- Open roles (as of early 2026): Robotics Firmware Engineer, Robotics Hardware Engineer, Data Operations Lead, Research Scientist, Product Engineer, Deployment Engineer, Head of People – offering broad ownership and career growth.