Data Scientist II

NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory

3d • $127,504 - $138,008 • Onsite

About The Position

The Artificial Intelligence Group at JPL develops fundamental research and software applications for spacecraft autonomy, scientific data analysis, mission operations automation, and onboard analysis for real-time decisions. Projects include automating ground and flight operations for communications stations, space missions, marine vehicles, and aerial vehicles, including vehicle fleets. The group’s software is used on missions including ECOSTRESS, OCO-3, EMIT, NISAR, M2020, and the DSN.

The Data Scientist II will apply artificial intelligence technologies to partially or fully automate critical systems for scheduling, planning, and resource allocation. The role includes developing autonomous-system algorithms and machine-learning systems for interpreting remote-sensing imagery and using large multimodal models to reason about imagery, time, patterns, and ramifications. JPL is located in Pasadena, California, and describes its campus as a collaborative environment focused on innovation and excellence.

Requirements

• Typically requires a bachelor's degree in Computer Science or a related discipline and at least 3 years of related experience; a master's degree in a similar discipline and at least 1 year of related experience; or a Ph.D. in a similar discipline.
• Broad knowledge in one or more related areas, including software development, artificial intelligence, operations research, or resource-allocation mechanisms.
• Experience applying programming-language principles and techniques; languages listed in order of preference are Rust, C++, C, Python, and Java.
• Background knowledge in artificial intelligence and/or operations-research techniques and concepts, demonstrated through software artifacts built and tested.
• Experience architecting large models and deep-learning training and inference pipelines, demonstrated through code, papers, documents, or similar work.
• Experience with large models, such as VLMs, LLMs, and foundation models, including training, deploying, compressing, evaluating, and testing them, demonstrated through code, papers, documents, or similar work.

Nice To Haves

• Hands-on experience with automation and analysis systems for robotic autonomous systems.
• Extensive knowledge of applicable industry and/or academic practices and standards in software design and development and computer science.
• Experience in interdisciplinary team leadership.
• Experience writing proposals, task plans, and research publications for peer-reviewed forums.

Responsibilities

• Develop planning, scheduling, resource-allocation, and execution algorithms for autonomous systems that interpret complex state, resource, constraint, and event data and take actions to achieve mission goals.
• Develop and use search-based, constraint-based, satisfaction, and optimization systems to solve large-scale planning and resource-allocation problems.
• Develop machine-learning systems for interpreting remote-sensing imagery and large multimodal models for reasoning about imagery, time, patterns, and ramifications.
• Support efforts to use artificial intelligence technologies to partially or fully automate critical systems for scheduling, planning, and resource allocation.

Benefits

• Health, dental, vision, wellbeing, and retirement plans.
• Paid time off.
• Learning opportunities.
• Rideshare benefits.
• Childcare benefits.
• Flexible schedule.
• Parental leave.
• Work-life balance focus.
• For benefits-eligible positions, benefits are effective on the first day of the month coincident with or immediately following the employee’s start date.

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Mid Level