Research Engineer

Remote hybrid: Persons in these roles are expected to spend part of their time on-site in our Seattle offices and may occasionally work remotely from their home in the Greater Seattle area. On-site requirements vary based on position and team. If you have questions about Hybrid work arrangements for this role, please ask your recruiter.

Compensation Range: $106,720 - $155,810

Research Engineer, PRIOR Team

The Allen Institute for Artificial Intelligence (AI2) is a non-profit research institute in Seattle founded by Paul Allen. The core mission of (AI2) is to contribute to humanity through high-impact AI research and engineering. 

AI2’s Perceptual Reasoning and Interaction Research team (PRIOR) seeks to advance computer vision to create AI systems that see, explore, learn, and reason about the world. 

Our latest work includes:

Unified-IO: The first neural model to perform a large and diverse set of AI tasks spanning classical computer vision, image synthesis, vision-and-language, and natural language processing (NLP).

https://unified-io.allenai.org

ProcTHOR: Enabling Embodied AI to scale by orders of magnitude by procedurally generating interactive 3D environments.

https://procthor.allenai.org

Learn more about our work at https://prior.allenai.org

Your Next Challenge:

PRIOR is looking for Research Engineers to work closely with our scientists on a variety of projects in the following research areas:

• Vision and Language
• Embodied AI
• AI for the Common Good
• And more ...

Your responsibilities may include:

• Building and evaluating deep learning models 
• Collecting annotated data using crowdsourcing
• Writing and submitting research papers to top tier AI conferences
• Developing computer vision and reinforcement learning packages to assist our research efforts internally as well as share externally
• And more ...

What You Will Need:

• Strong software development skills
• Background in computer vision or machine learning
• Strong prototyping skills to implement preliminary research ideas
• Experience with deep learning frameworks (e.g., PyTorch, Tensorflow, etc.)
• Strong collaboration skills - our environment is small and collaborative, and we'd like you to thrive on working closely with others.

Bonus qualifications:

• Publications in top-tier computer vision or machine learning conferences
• Experience with cloud services (e.g., AWS and Azure)
• Experience building systems at scale
• Experience building deep learning packages or frameworks
• Experience with crowdsourced data collection (e.g., Amazon’s Mechanical Turk)

Physical Demands and Work Environment:

The physical demands described here are representative of those that must be met by a team member to successfully perform the essential functions of this position. Reasonable accommodations may be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform the functions.

• Must be able to remain in a stationary position for long periods of time. 
• The ability to communicate information and ideas so others will understand. Must be able to exchange accurate information in these situations. 
• The ability to observe details at close range.
• Can work under deadlines.

Who We Are:

In addition to AI2’s core mission, we also aim to contribute to humanity through our treatment of each member of the AI2 Team. Some highlights are:

• We are a learning organization– because everything AI2 does is ground-breaking, we are learning every day. Similarly, through weekly AI2 Academy lectures, a wide variety of world-class AI experts as guest speakers, and our commitment to your personal on-going education, AI2 is place where you will have opportunities to continue learning alongside your coworkers. 
• We value diversity -We seek to hire, support, and promote people from all genders, ethnicities, and all levels of experience regardless of age. We particularly encourage applications from women, non-binary individuals, people of color, members of the LGBTQA+ community, and people with disabilities of any kind. 
• We value inclusion -We understand the value that people's individual experiences and perspectives can bring to an organization, and we are building a culture in which all voices are heard, respected and considered.
• We emphasize a healthy work/life balance – we believe our team members are happiest and most productive when their work/life balance is optimized. While we value powerful research results which drive our mission forward, we also value dinner with family, weekend time, and vacation time. We offer generous paid vacation and sick leave as well as family leave.
• We are collaborative and transparent – we consider ourselves a team, all moving with a common purpose. We are quick to cheer our successes, and even quicker to share and jointly problem solve our failures.
• We are in Seattle – and our office is on the water! We have mountains, we have lakes, we have four seasons, we bike to work, we have a vibrant theater scene, and we have so much else. We even have kayaks for you to paddle right outside our front door. We welcome interest from applicants from outside of the United States.
• We are friendly– chances are you will like every one of the 100+ (and growing) people who work here. We do. 

AI2 is proud to be an Equal Opportunity employer. We do not discriminate based upon race, religion, color, national origin, sex (including pregnancy, childbirth, or related medical conditions), sexual orientation, gender, gender identity, gender expression, transgender status, sexual stereotypes, age, status as a protected veteran, status as an individual with a disability, or other applicable legally protected characteristics. You may view the related Know Your Rights compliance poster and the Pay Transparency Nondiscrimination Provision by clicking on their corresponding links. 

This employer participates in E-Verify and will provide the federal government with your Form I-9 information to confirm that you are authorized to work in the U.S. If E-Verify cannot confirm that you are authorized to work, this employer is required to give you written instructions and an opportunity to contact the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) or Social Security Administration (SSA) so you can begin to resolve the issue before the employer can take any action against you, including terminating your employment. Employers can only use E-Verify once you have accepted a job offer and completed the Form I-9.

We are committed to providing reasonable accommodations to employees and applicants with disabilities to the full extent required by the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). If you feel you need a reasonable accommodation pursuant to the ADA, you are encouraged to contact us at recruiting@allenai.org 

Benefits: 

• Team members and their families are covered by medical, dental, vision, basic life insurance, basic accidental death and dismemberment insurance, short-term disability, long-term disability, and an employee assistance program.
• Team members are able to enroll in our voluntary life insurance program, our voluntary accidental death and dismemberment program, our health savings account plan, our healthcare reimbursement arrangement plan, and our health care and dependent care flexible spending account plans.
• Team members are able to enroll in our company’s 401k plan.
• Team members will receive $125 per month to assist with commuting or internet expenses and are eligible to receive up to $150 reimbursement for health and wellbeing expenses per month.
• Team members will also receive up to ten sick days per year, up to seven personal days per year, up to 20 vacation days per year and twelve paid holidays throughout the calendar year.
• Team members will be able to receive annual bonuses and can participate in the long-term incentive plan.