Position Description

Post-Baccalaureate Researcher

Job Category
Fulltime Term

ExemptOvertimeEligible
Overtime Eligible

Benefits Eligible
Benefit Based

Caltech is a world-renowned science and engineering institute that marshals some of the world's brightest minds and most innovative tools to address fundamental scientific questions. We thrive on finding and cultivating talented people who are passionate about what they do. Join us and be a part of the diverse Caltech community.

Job Summary

IPAC at Caltech is seeking a full-time, one-year term, post-baccalaureate researcher position to investigate and implement strategies for leveraging large language models (LLMs) to help users navigate the many mission data sets and data services offered by the NASA/IPAC Infrared Science Archive (IRSA), with applicability to other IPAC archives in mind. Come be part of the team that is helping astronomers and data scientists all over the world access and explore IRSA's petabyte archives of astronomy data!

IPAC, part of the Physics, Math, and Astronomy Division at Caltech (www.caltech.edu), provides science operations, user support, data and archive services, and scientific vision to enhance discovery with observatories both in space and on the ground. IRSA (http://irsa.ipac.caltech.edu) is a steward of scientific data sets delivered by NASA's Astrophysics missions. We enable transformative scientific research using data from these and other missions. IRSA ingests petabyte-scale imaging datasets, maintains multi-billion row databases, and develops a variety of tools for accessing, visualizing, and analyzing data from cutting-edge astronomical facilities. We support space observatories including SPHEREx, a NASA mission conducting an infrared, spectroscopic survey of the entire sky; Euclid, a European Space Agency (ESA) mission studying the geometry and nature of the dark Universe; and NEO Surveyor, an upcoming mission designed to discover and characterize potentially hazardous asteroids that have close approaches to the Earth.

Essential Job Duties

You will work within a small team to investigate strategies for leveraging LLMs to provide assistance to users of IRSA data and tools. These investigations will include developing proofs of concepts in Python, the development of a testing suite of user questions, and evaluating different implementations against this testing suite. You will present the results of these investigations within the team and within the larger IPAC community to those interested in adopting these strategies. Your day-to-day activities will include coding in Python, interacting with scientists and software engineers, reading and writing technical documentation, assessing quantitative and qualitative performance of models, and summarizing and presenting findings.

Basic Qualifications

• Bachelor’s or equivalent degree in a technical subject such as Astronomy, Physics, Math, Computer Science, Computer Engineering, Information Sciences, or a related field.
• Experience with large language models (LLMs).
• Fluency in Python.
• Strong communication and writing skills.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience with astronomical data sets is advantageous, but not required.
• Experience with APIs (Application Programming Interfaces) is advantageous, but not required.

Required Documents

• Resume listing relevant experience and qualifications.
• Cover letter describing your interest in and fit for the position.

The expected start date for this role is mid-March 2026. This is a full-time, one-year term position. The application deadline is February 2, 2026.

Hiring Range

$20.00 - $28.00 Per Hour

The salary of the finalist(s) selected for this role will be set based on a variety of factors, including but not limited to, internal equity, experience, education, specialty and training.

As one of the largest employers in Pasadena, CA, Caltech is committed to providing comprehensive benefits to eligible employees and their eligible dependents. Our benefits package includes competitive compensation, health, dental, and vision insurance, retirement savings plans, generous paid time off (vacation, holidays, sick time, parental leave, bereavement, etc.), tuition reimbursement, and more. Non-benefit eligible employees will have access to some benefits such as onsite counseling and sick time. Learn more about our benefits and staff perks.