Research Scientist Engineer
A 501(c)(3) science-and-technology research institute/foundation operating direct Neuro-AI research, life-sciences programs through Radial, and an open-science residency program.
About Astera Institute
Astera Institute supports and operates open public-goods work for science and technology. Its current activities include neuroscience-informed AGI research, AI-enabled life-sciences programs, open datasets and publishing infrastructure, and residencies for early-stage projects.
Skills
Candidate Availability
Required and preferred rules are kept separate and reflect the wording in the original posting.
About the Role
You will develop and implement architectures and learning algorithms for neuroscience-based world models, drawing on deep learning, causality, probabilistic models, energy-based models, and biologically inspired architectures. You will design experiments on cognition and learning, translate mathematical frameworks into scalable systems, and contribute to open science.
Requirements
- Strong foundations in deep learning, graphical models, and information theory
- Expert-level proficiency with PyTorch or JAX
- Clean, reproducible research coding skills
- Demonstrated interest in AI robustness, generalization, and common-sense reasoning
- Passion for computational and architectural principles of the mammalian brain
- Ability to thrive in a lean, fast-paced environment with high autonomy
Responsibilities
- Develop and implement architectures and learning algorithms for neuroscience-based world models
- Design experiments on high-level cognition, causal representations, sensory-motor integration, active inference, and unsupervised learning
- Translate abstract mathematical frameworks into scalable systems with neuroscientists and software engineers
- Innovate publication models and support open-source code releases and open access