Data Scientist II

JPL/NASA•Pasadena, CA

6d•$127,504 - $138,008•Onsite

About The Position

The Artificial Intelligence Group at JPL conducts fundamental research that leads to software applications in 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 fleets. The group’s software is used on missions including ECOSTRESS, OCO-3, EMIT, NISAR, M2020, and the DSN. The Data Scientist II will use artificial intelligence technologies to partially or fully automate critical systems for scheduling, planning, and resource allocation. The role focuses on developing algorithms and systems for autonomous operations, large-scale planning and resource allocation, and machine-learning and multimodal-model applications for remote-sensing imagery and related reasoning.

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 languages, with preference in this order: Rust, C++, C, Python, and Java.
Background knowledge of 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, or foundation models, including training, deployment, compression, evaluation, and testing, 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 to take actions toward 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 apply artificial intelligence to the partial or full automation of critical scheduling, planning, and resource-allocation systems.