Skip to content

Open nowPosted 135 days ago

Research Assistant

Generalist37 open roles

Pay
$150,000 – $200,000 a year
Where
San Francisco Bay Area (San Mateo)
Work mode
On site
Get the CV for this job

From $25 per CV, paid once. No subscription.

Your applicationOpen nowResearch AssistantGeneralist · San Francisco Bay Area (San Mateo)
  1. YouYes, apply to this one.

  2. CV RocketCV written for this posting.

  3. 25 readersRecruiter, hiring manager, skeptic. Round after round.

  4. CV RocketApplied on Generalist's own form.

The reply lands in your private mailbox

3×more interviews than doing it yourself with ChatGPT.

The clock on this job

Early applications get read.

13.6% of postings close within 7 days. Measured by our own scanner across the market. Generalist postings stay open a median of 46 days.

Share of postings closed within
  1. 2.3%1 day
  2. 4.7%3 days
  3. 13.6%7 days
  4. 21.9%14 days
  5. 36.9%30 days
  6. 59.0%60 days
This job: posted 135 days ago

Generalist median: 46 days open

The posting

ABOUT GENERALIST

At Generalist, we are on a mission to build general intelligence for the physical world and make it useful to everyone. We believe the industries and homes of the future will depend on humans and machines working together in new ways. Robots can help us build more and get more done.

We build embodied foundation models, starting with a focus on dexterity. This requires advancing the frontiers of data, models, and hardware, to enable robots to intelligently interact with the physical world.

The company embraces both large-scale AI and robotics as core to its DNA. Our team of researchers, roboticists, and company builders come from OpenAI, Boston Dynamics, Google DeepMind, and other frontier labs—with a track record of shipping AI breakthroughs. Before Generalist, we pioneered large embodied multimodal models and vision-language-action models (PaLM-E, https://research.google/blog/palm-e-an-embodied-multimodal-language-model/ RT-2 https://deepmind.google/blog/rt-2-new-model-translates-vision-and-language-into-action/, Gemini Robotics https://deepmind.google/models/gemini-robotics/), launched and scaled ChatGPT https://chatgpt.com/ and GPT-4 https://openai.com/index/gpt-4-research/ to hundreds of millions of users, engineered the foundations of autonomous driving, built next-generation robots (Atlas https://bostondynamics.com/atlas/, Spot https://bostondynamics.com/products/spot/, Stretch https://bostondynamics.com/products/stretch/) and pushed the limits of what they can do (from parkour https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tF4DML7FIWk to manipulation https://bostondynamics.com/blog/large-behavior-models-atlas-find-new-footing/, and testing robustness https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aFuA50H9uek).

We are an equal opportunity employer, and we do not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, color, national origin, sex, sexual orientation, age, veteran status, disability, genetic information, or other applicable legally protected characteristic.

ABOUT THE ROLE:

We are looking for a Research Assistant to help design, run, and analyze experiments at the intersection of machine learning and robotics. This is an entry-level research role for individuals with less than 3 years of machine learning research experience, and is designed to be a potential career path towards eventually contributing as a Research Scientist.

At Generalist, we are building foundation models for robots. These models improve through a tight feedback loop: design experiments, collect data, train or fine-tune models, evaluate them in the real world, analyze results, and repeat. This role helps make that loop faster, more rigorous, and more reliable.

You will work closely with ML researchers and robotics engineers to run robot experiments, design evaluation tasks, brainstorm ideas, collect data, interpret results, and document repeatable workflows.

A major part of this role is helping ensure our evaluations are trustworthy. We care deeply about experimental design, controls, hands-on iteration, sample sizes, variance, repeatability, and statistical rigor.

YOU’LL BE RESPONSIBLE FOR:

- Running structured experiments on robot platforms

- Setting up physical tasks, materials, fixtures, and benchmarks for robot evaluations

- Collecting high-quality robot data and tracking experimental conditions

- Measuring real-world success rates across tasks, robots, and model variants

- Designing evaluations with attention to controls, repeatability, statistical rigor, and sources of bias

- Analyzing results to help distinguish real model improvements from noise

- Synthesizing findings and communicating them clearly to ML researchers and engineers

- Preparing robots, sensors, workspaces, and materials for rollouts and evaluations

- Helping kick off training jobs, run evaluations, and organize results

- Beta testing internal and third-party tools for teaching robots new skills

- Troubleshooting physical setups, hardware issues, and procedural bottlenecks

- Writing clear documentation and playbooks so others can reproduce workflows

- Improving experimental reliability, data quality, and operational throughput over time

YOU MIGHT THRIVE IN THIS ROLE IF YOU:

- Have experience running experiments, lab studies, field studies, data collection workflows, or structured evaluations

- Think carefully about experimental design, confounding factors, controls, sample sizes, variance, and what conclusions the data can actually support

- Are diligent and detail-oriented, especially when tasks are repetitive but subtle differences matter

- Enjoy hands-on work with physical systems, equipment, materials, or instruments

- Are comfortable following protocols while also noticing when something is wrong or could be improved

- Can coordinate many moving parts: robots, materials, tasks, data, model versions, metrics, and documentation

- Communicate clearly and can summarize what happened, what changed, and what the evidence suggests

- Are curious about machine learning and robotics, even if you are not yet an expert in either

- Have some exposure to programming, data analysis, robotics, hardware, electronics, mechanical assembly, or experimental tooling

- Prefer fast iteration, careful measurement, and empirical progress over abstract theory alone

From $25, paid onceGet the CV for this job

What happens when you press

One press. We do the rest.

  1. A CV for this posting

    Written against Generalist's own wording, from every piece of relevant proof in your profile.

  2. 25 readers review it

    Recruiter, hiring manager, skeptic and more read every draft, round after round. You get the best round.

    The review screen in CV Rocket: how each CV was read, round by round.
  3. We apply on Generalist's form

    Our application engine gets through the hardest forms there are. Where a question needs you, AI suggests the best answer. Don't want us applying from our IP addresses? Use our Chrome extension: we apply straight from your own browser.

    An application in CV Rocket: every answer filled in on the employer's form.
  4. Every reply, sorted

    Generalist's answer lands in your private mailbox, and we classify it on arrival: interview, question, rejection.

    The CV Rocket inbox: each employer reply classified as an interview, an action or a rejection.
  5. Reply with AI

    AI helps you write the email, checks it and sends it. We show you whether the recruiter read it.

  6. The interview in your calendar

    Full integration with your calendar. The invitation goes straight in.

    An interview invitation in the CV Rocket inbox, added to the candidate's calendar.
Get the CV for this job

From $25 per CV, paid once. No subscription.

Why it works

3×

more interviews than doing it yourself with ChatGPT.

ChatGPT writes a CV and never learns what happened to it. We see every reply. For each CV we know:

  • How it was written, and how the review scored it
  • When we applied, and how long after the posting went up
  • Which posting, which company, which city
  • Who got the interview, and who heard nothing

That is how we know which CVs get called.

Get the CV for this job

From $25 per CV, paid once. No subscription.

The numbers game

More applications. More interviews.

Every application goes out with its own CV, written for that posting and paid once. Send enough of them and the law of large numbers finds you the job.

By hand5–10
With CV Rocket100
applications a day

Nearby

Live postings like this one

Same employer first, then the same role elsewhere.

Before you press

Straight answers

Get the CV for this job

From $25 per CV, paid once. No subscription.

What if my background isn't good enough?

We make the most of the background you have. The CV uses every piece of relevant proof your profile holds, and one of the 25 readers reads your whole profile and flags what the CV left out.

Do you really apply for me?

Yes, on the employer's own form, the hardest ones included. Where a question needs you, you answer it right there and AI suggests the best answer. Don't want us applying from our IP addresses? Use our Chrome extension: we apply straight from your own browser.

Is it a subscription?

No. You pay once per CV, from $25. Every application goes out with its own CV, written for that posting.

One job. One CV.
Paid once.

Pick the posting you want. We write for it, apply for you and catch the reply.

Get the CV for this job

From $25 per CV, paid once. No subscription.