Research Scientist, Program Synthesis & Neuro-symbolic Methods

The role

Research Scientists on the MARA project develop computational theories of scientific reasoning applied to robotics and embodied intelligence. You will advance world modeling, reinforcement learning, program synthesis, and robotic control to create systems that learn, reason about, and interact with the physical world.

What you will do

• Develop computational theories of intelligence specific to program synthesis and neuro-symbolic methods.
• Design and implement novel algorithms for embodied AI systems.
• Collaborate across specializations to integrate world modeling with planning and neural learning.
• Validate research on physical systems by working with hardware engineers to test algorithms on real robots.
• Work with domain experts to identify impactful applications of MARA technology.
• Distill insights into general mathematical and computational theories.
• Develop and maintain open-source software.
• Publish and present findings in journals and conferences.
• Contribute to the culture and direction of Basis.

Required qualifications

• Demonstrated ability to do high quality scientific research.
• Deep expertise in Program Synthesis & Neuro-symbolic Methods including domain-specific languages, program induction, verifiable control, and neuro-symbolic integration.
• Experience combining neural networks with symbolic reasoning or program generation.
• Strong mathematical and computational foundations in probability theory, optimization, and linear algebra.
• Ability to implement complex algorithms from first principles.
• Ability to work across the research-to-deployment pipeline.
• Ability to progress with autonomy and intellectual curiosity.
• Ability to value collaboration and knowledge transfer.

Nice to have

• PhD (or equivalent experience) in technical areas including: robotics, machine learning, computer vision, control theory, cognitive science, or physics.
• Experience at leading robotics or AI labs (academic or industry).
• Track record of algorithms deployed on physical robot systems.
• Contributions to major open-source projects in robotics or ML.
• Experience with both theoretical research and systems engineering.
• Background spanning multiple specialization areas.

About the company

Basis is a nonprofit applied AI research organization with goals to understand and build intelligence and to advance society's ability to solve intractable problems.