Research Scientist / Engineer - Pre-training Data & Evaluation

Rhoda Ai
Palo Alto, US
On-site

Who this role is best for

Best suited to mid-level research scientists or engineers with experience in large-scale video data pipelines and generative model evaluation, working in robotics and AI research.

Best fit for

  • Candidates with expertise in video data curation and quality filtering for generative models.
    — “Experience building large-scale video data pipelines: ingestion, filtering, deduplication, and quality scoring
  • Researchers who can design diagnostic evaluations for video generation models.
    — “Ability to design evaluations for video generation models that are diagnostic, reproducible, and actionable
  • Engineers comfortable deploying vision-language models for automated video annotation.
    — “Deploy and scale vision-language models (VLMs) and video understanding models for automated annotation

Things to consider

  • Role requires collaboration with multiple teams to align data quality with research decisions.
    — “Collaborate closely with pre-training and post-training teams to ensure data quality
  • Expectations include tracking model capability trends across training runs.
    — “Track model capability trends across training runs, catching regressions and surfacing improvements early

How to stand out

  • Highlight specific projects where you improved video generation quality through data selection.
    — “Research and implement data selection, mixing, and weighting strategies that improve video generation quality
  • Showcase experience with large-scale web video datasets like WebVid or HowTo100M.
    — “Experience with large-scale web video dataset curation (e.g., WebVid, HowTo100M, Ego4D, or similar)
  • Demonstrate familiarity with video generation quality metrics such as FVD or motion consistency.
    — “Familiarity with video generation quality metrics (FVD, perceptual quality, motion consistency)
Pace · Fast PacedCollaboration · HighAutonomy · HighDecision Impact · CompanyLevel · Mid Level

Derived from job-description analysis by Serendipath's career intelligence engine.

What success looks like

  • Design and implement scalable curation pipelines for web-scale video pretraining data
  • Develop video-specific annotation frameworks and quality filters
  • Build evaluation frameworks and benchmarks to measure model capabilities
  • Deploy and scale vision-language models for automated annotation, filtering, and content scoring
Typical background
Strong understanding of data-centric ML and how web video data quality affects large generative model performanceExperience building large-scale video data pipelines

Skills & requirements

Required

Data-centric MLVideo Data PipelinesVideo Data CurationVideo Annotation FrameworksEvaluation FrameworksVideo Generation ModelsVision-language ModelsVideo Understanding Models

Preferred

Phd Or Strong Research Background In ML, Computer Vision, Or A Related FieldExperience With Large-scale Web Video Dataset CurationFamiliarity With Video Generation Quality MetricsExperience Running VLM Or Clip-style Inference At Scale For Automated Video Filtering And AnnotationPrior Work On Evaluation Methodology For Video Generation Or World Models

Stack & domain

Data-centric MlVideo Data PipelinesVideo AnnotationEvaluation FrameworksVision-language ModelsVideo Understanding ModelsAutomated AnnotationVideo Generation Quality MetricsVideo GenerationWorld ModelsTemporal CoherenceLong-horizon Rollout FidelityDownstream Robot Task PerformanceData SelectionData MixingData WeightingVideo Generation QualityTransfer To Robotic ControlEvaluation MethodologyCollaborationResearchProblem SolvingInnovationAttention To DetailTechnical WritingCommunicationTeamworkAdaptabilityLeadershipNullMachine LearningComputer VisionRoboticsVideo Understanding

About the role

Original posting from Rhoda Ai via Ashby

At Rhoda AI, we’re building the next generation of generalist intelligent robots. We own the full robotics stack from high-performance hardware and robot systems to the infrastructure and state-of-the-art foundation world models that control our robots. Our robots are designed to be generalists capable of operating in complex, real-world environments and handling long-tail edge cases, made possible by our cutting edge research and end-to-end system design. We've raised over $400M and are investing aggressively in model research, infrastructure, hardware development, and manufacturing scale-up to make generalist robotics a reality.

We're looking for Research Scientists and Research Engineers to build the data and evaluation foundations for our video action model. This team owns web-scale video data curation, annotation pipelines, and evaluation methodology — directly determining the quality of the video pretraining distribution and how clearly we can measure model progress. We hire across levels — from MTS-Staff

What You'll Do

  • Design and implement scalable curation pipelines for web-scale video pretraining data: ingestion, deduplication, quality filtering, and content classification across internet-scale video corpora
  • Develop video-specific annotation frameworks and quality filters — motion quality, scene diversity, action content, temporal coherence — to improve pretraining signal
  • Build evaluation frameworks and benchmarks to measure causal video model capabilities: prediction quality, temporal coherence, long-horizon rollout fidelity, and downstream robot task performance
  • Research and implement data selection, mixing, and weighting strategies that improve video generation quality and transfer to robotic control
  • Deploy and scale vision-language models (VLMs) and video understanding models for automated annotation, filtering, and content scoring at web scale
  • Collaborate closely with pre-training and post-training teams to ensure data quality and evaluation methodology drive research decisions
  • Track model capability trends across training runs, catching regressions and surfacing improvements early

What We're Looking For

  • Strong understanding of data-centric ML and how web video data quality affects large generative model performance
  • Experience building large-scale video data pipelines: ingestion, filtering, deduplication, and quality scoring
  • Familiarity with video-specific data characteristics: temporal structure, motion quality, scene diversity, and action content
  • Solid ML fundamentals with hands-on experience training or evaluating large generative models
  • Ability to design evaluations for video generation models that are diagnostic, reproducible, and actionable
  • Staff-level candidates are expected to define technical direction and drive research strategy independently; senior/MTS candidates execute complex projects with strong fundamentals and growing scope

Nice to Have (But Not Required)

  • PhD or strong research background in ML, computer vision, or a related field
  • Experience with large-scale web video dataset curation (e.g., WebVid, HowTo100M, Ego4D, or similar)
  • Familiarity with video generation quality metrics (FVD, perceptual quality, motion consistency)
  • Experience running VLM or CLIP-style inference at scale for automated video filtering and annotation
  • Prior work on evaluation methodology for video generation or world models
  • Understanding of how web video data properties connect to downstream robotic action prediction
  • Publication record at NeurIPS, ICML, ICLR, CVPR, or related venues

Why This Role

  • The video curation and evaluation rigor you build directly determines pretraining quality and research iteration speed for the entire team
  • Build the benchmark infrastructure that gives the team an honest signal of model progress toward real robot performance
  • High leverage: improvements to data quality compound across every training run
  • Work at the intersection of large-scale systems and generative model research with visibility across all model development

Source: Rhoda Ai careers (Ashby)

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