Sr. Machine Learning Scientist, GenAI/R&D

Join Blue Origin's Rocket Factory Team

At Blue Origin, we envision millions of people living and working in space for the benefit of Earth. We're working to develop reusable, safe, and low-cost space vehicles and systems within a culture of safety, collaboration, and inclusion. Join our team of problem solvers as we add new chapters to the history of spaceflight!

This role is part of Enterprise Technology (ET), where we're developing the digital infrastructure needed to build the road to space, with an emphasis on digital capabilities required to advance Blue Origin's mission. Enterprise Technology is the center of excellence for digital technology at Blue Origin, providing oversight and governance to align technology and business strategies.

Join us to develop innovative AI models for our Rocket Factory with a collaborative team. We are looking for someone with deep technical expertise that is interested in positively impacting safe human spaceflight.

If you are a passionate and high agency individual (have energy to independently drive initiatives, fix problems and improve status quo), we would love to hear from you.

We encourage you to apply even if you do not believe you meet every single qualification. We are building an inclusive team and understand that learning curves exist for everyone.

Role and Responsibilities:

As part of the core AI team within Enterprise Technology, you will be instrumental in improving the manufacturing processes of space crafts. By helping build novel AI systems that harnesses multimodal information from disparate sources and automatically transforming them, your work will assist manufacturing engineers in our factories, and make them more efficient, reduce latency, and increase velocity of launches.

Here are a few common tasks that are expected to be completed as part of your role:

• Design experiments, hypotheses and rigorously benchmark solutions
• Conduct literature review to identify relevant datasets, models and tools to prototype and improve AI systems in production
• Develop techniques for data preprocessing, extraction, and synthetic generation
• Deploy algorithms by creating docker images, spinning up containers, creating endpoints and microservices
• Document and present to stakeholders and mentor team members / interns

Desired Background and Qualifications:

Machine Learning

• 7+ years of experience coding - Python and AI frameworks (TensorFlow/ PyTorch)
• Background in Deep Learning - vision-language models (VLMs), transformers, training LoRA adapters, model distillation, and fine-tuning
• Strong mathematical foundations - linear algebra, calculus, statistics
• Ability to curate large-scale multimodal datasets - data preprocessing and generation of datasets (synthetic and human-labeled)
• Experience with ML libraries and tools pandas, torchvision, NLTK, spaCy, diffusers, vllm, transformers, DSPy, Ray, LangGraph, DeepSpeed etc.)
• Designing machine learning experiments understanding and improving model behaviors and proposing solutions for generalization/interpretability
• Familiarity with reinforcement learning principles.
• Understanding of AI ethics and responsible AI development practices

Distributed Systems

• Expertise with GPU optimization and Cloud platforms (AWS, Azure)
• Experience with container orchestration tools (Docker, Kubernetes)
• CI/CD pipeline implementation and management
• Systems architecture design for AI applications

Preferred Qualifications:

• Prompt and context engineering - experience with implementation of Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG)
• Proficiency in generative model architectures - GANs, VAEs, Diffusion Models
• Experience with post-training techniques - instruction tuning, preference modeling, or RLHF
• Experience with 3D modeling and building multi-agentic workflows
• Demonstrate concrete achievements from ML projects that involve building multimodal algorithms for some of the following tasks: segmentation, object detection, classification, question and answering and so on
• Interest or experience in test-time/inference scaling
• Research publications in machine learning conferences, journals and/or open-source contributions

Compensation Range for: WA applicants is $177,567.00-$248,593.80. Other site ranges may differ.

Culture Statement

Don't meet all desired requirements? Studies have shown that some people are less likely to apply to jobs unless they meet every single desired qualification. At Blue Origin, we are dedicated to building an authentic workplace, so if you're excited about this role but your past experience doesn't align perfectly with every desired qualification in the job description, we encourage you to apply anyway. You may be just the right candidate for this or other roles.

Export Control Regulations

Applicants for employment at Blue Origin must be a U.S. citizen or national, U.S. permanent resident (i.e. current Green Card holder), or lawfully admitted into the U.S. as a refugee or granted asylum.

Background Check

• Required for all positions: Blue's Standard Background Check
• Required for Certain Job Profiles: Defense Biometric Identification System (DBIDS) background check if at any time the role requires one to be on a military installation
• Required for Certain Job Profiles: Drivers who operate Commercial Motor Vehicles with a Gross Vehicle Weight (GVW), Gross Vehicle Weight Rating (GVWR) or combination of power unit and trailer that meets or exceeds 10,001 lbs. and/or transports placardable amounts of hazardous materials by ground in any vehicle on a public road while in commerce, may be subject to additional Federal Motor Carrier Safety Regulations including: Driver Qualification Files, Medical Certification (obtained before onboarding), Road Test, Hours of Service, Drug and Alcohol Testing (CDL drivers only), vehicle inspection requirements, CDL requirements (if applicable) and hazardous materials transportation/shipping training.
• Required for certain Job Profiles: Ability to obtain and maintain Merchant Mariner Credential, which includes pre-employment and random drug testing as well as DOT physical

Benefits

• Benefits include: Medical, dental, vision, basic and supplemental life insurance, paid parental leave, short and long-term disability, 401(k) with a company match of up to 5%, and an Education Support Program.
• Paid Time Off: Up to four (4) weeks per year based on weekly scheduled hours, and up to 14 company-paid holidays.
• Discretionary bonus: Bonuses are designed to reward individual contributions as well as allow employees to share in company results.
• Eligibility for benefits varies by role type, please check with your recruiter for a comprehensive list of the benefits available for this role.

Equal Employment Opportunity

Blue Origin is proud to be an Equal Opportunity/Affirmative Action Employer and is committed to attracting, retaining, and developing a highly qualified and dedicated workforce. Blue Origin hires and promotes people on the basis of their qualifications, performance, and abilities. We support the establishment and maintenance of a workplace that fosters trust, equality, and teamwork. We provide all qualified applicants for employment and employees with equal opportunities for hire, promotion, and other terms and conditions of employment, regardless of their race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin/ethnicity, age, physical or mental disability, genetic factors, military/veteran status, or any other status or characteristic protected by federal, state, and/or local law. Blue Origin will consider for employment qualified applicants with criminal histories in a manner consistent with applicable federal, state, and local laws.

Applicants wishing to receive information on Blue Origin's Affirmative Action Plans, or applicants requiring a reasonable accommodation in order to participate in the application and/or interview process, please contact us at EEOCompliance@blueorigin.com. Please note this is a publicly managed inbox. Please do not include any personal medical information in your request.

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