Research Scientist, VLA Models - Atlas jobs in United States
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Boston Dynamics · 2 hours ago

Research Scientist, VLA Models - Atlas

positionWaltham, MA
timeFull-time
remoteOnsite
seniorityMid, Senior Level
date3+ years exp

Boston Dynamics is a robotics company known for its advanced humanoid robots. They are seeking a VLA Research Scientist to architect, train, and deploy large-scale behavior models for dexterous manipulation on their Atlas robot, focusing on multimodal input and collaboration with various teams.

Artificial Intelligence (AI)RoboticsSoftware
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Growth Opportunities
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H1B Sponsor Likelynote

Responsibilities

Architect and train end-to-end VLA and Large Behavior Models for mobile manipulation on Atlas
Build large-scale imitation learning pipelines that learn from human demonstrations, teleoperation, and simulation data
Develop policies capable of few-shot generalization across diverse manipulation tasks
Create hierarchical behavior systems that combine learned skills into long-horizon behaviors
Integrate your models into Atlas’s autonomy stack in collaboration with controls and platform teams
Deploy, debug, and iterate your models directly on physical hardware
Write high-quality, maintainable Python and C++ code that fits into a large production codebase

Qualification

Behavior cloningImitation learningMultimodal learningLarge behavior modelsPythonC++PyTorchJAXAnalytical skillsDebugging skillsResearch code

Required

MS with 3+ years of experience or PhD in Machine Learning, Robotics, Computer Science, or related fields
Prior experience training and deploying learned policies for complex behaviors in robots or simulated characters
Strong background in: Behavior cloning / imitation learning, Diffusion policies, ACT, or other modern BC architectures, Large behavior models or sequence modeling, Multimodal (vision/language/action) learning
Experience with modern ML frameworks (PyTorch, JAX) and large-scale training workflows
Strong analytical and debugging skills; ability to write reliable, well-structured research code

Preferred

Hands-on experience deploying learned policies on real robots
Experience creating or curating large demonstration datasets (teleop, human demos, ego-centric video)
Experience with RL as a complementary tool within behavior learning pipelines
Publications in top-tier ML or robotics conferences (e.g., CoRL, RSS, ICRA, NeurIPS)
Experience contributing to large C++ or Python codebases

Company

Boston Dynamics

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Boston Dynamics is an engineering company that specializes in building dynamic robots and software for human simulation.
dateFounded in 1992
location
Waltham, Massachusetts, USA
people-size501-1000 employees
web-link
http://bostondynamics.com

H1B Sponsorship

Boston Dynamics has a track record of offering H1B sponsorships. Please note that this does not guarantee sponsorship for this specific role. Below presents additional info for your reference. (Data Powered by US Department of Labor)
Distribution of Different Job Fields Receiving Sponsorship
Represents job field similar to this job
Trends of Total Sponsorships
2025 (16)
2024 (25)
2023 (7)
2022 (6)
2020 (3)

Funding

Current Stage
Late Stage
Total Funding
$37M
Key Investors
SoftBank
2020-12-09Acquired
2019-02-06Series Unknown· $37M

Leadership Team

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Robert Playter
Chief Executive Officer
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Marc Theermann
Chief Strategy Officer
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Recent News

eeNews Europe
Hyundai outlines AI robotics strategy for CES 2026
2025-12-29
MarketScreener
Hyundai's Boston Dynamics to debut new Atlas humanoid robots at CES
2025-12-22
EIN Presswire
Service Robotics Market Set to Grow at 21.26% CAGR Through 2031: Healthcare Automation & Defense, E-Commerce
2025-12-19
Company data provided by crunchbase