STORY: Built for Change: How Olin Prepared Two Alums for Roles at Tutor Intelligence

July 2, 2026

At America’s largest robot data factory, Olin College alums Ellie Ramos ’25 and Jacob Prisament ’25 are launching their careers while applying the same curiosity, initiative and adaptability that defined their undergraduate education as Oliners. 

Founded five years ago, Tutor Intelligence is a robotics and AI research startup in Watertown, MA, that applies artificial intelligence to physical robotic systems. The company’s primary commercial product focuses on palletizing and automating the process of stacking boxes onto shipping pallets in warehouses and manufacturing facilities.

Ramos is a robotics hardware engineer and has been at the startup since graduating from Olin. They contributed to the hardware design and development of the robots in Data Factory 1 (DF1) and is mentioned as a contributor to Tutor’s technical report. As a full-time robotics engineer, Ramos primarily designs and improves the hardware that powers Tutor’s robotic systems, but their role has also covered failure analysis, design reviews and workflow improvement between engineering and manufacturing. For Ramos, life at Tutor Intelligence has mirrored their Olin experience.  

“Working in a really fast-paced environment where I have a lot of agency in what I get to do and where I get to move quickly has been really, really nice,” said Ramos, who majored in mechanical engineering and was the captain of Olin Baja, one of the college’s student-run project teams. “Olin is a place that changes so much, and we’re constantly growing with the space around it. So, it definitely made it a lot easier to embrace change in my career.”

“Olin is a place that changes so much, and we’re constantly growing with the space around it. So, it definitely made it a lot easier to embrace change in my career,” says Ellie Ramos '25, a robotics hardware engineer Tutor Intelligence.

Similar to Ramos, Prisament also enjoys working in a fast-paced, collaborative environment. He joined Tutor Intelligence as a mechanical engineer in early June 2026 after earning his mechanical engineering degree from Olin, where he was part of Olin’s Formula team, the Olin Conductorless Orchestra and Olin Fire Arts Club. 

"I think there aren’t that many places where you get to bring all these things together, where you have an interesting technical challenge and a young, interesting team who really want to dive into it,” said Prisament. “Olin makes really flexible engineers because we’re always balancing major projects at the same time. It really teaches you to be able to jump back and forth to take on whatever’s most important at a given time, which matters a lot at a place that’s moving really fast and juggling different priorities.”

“Olin makes really flexible engineers because we’re always balancing major projects at the same time. It really teaches you to be able to jump back and forth to take on whatever’s most important at a given time, which matters a lot at a place that’s moving really fast and juggling different priorities,” says Jacob Prisament ’25, a mechanical engineer at Tutor Intelligence.

Olin and Tutor Intelligence also share similarities in their internal resources, making it easier to design, build and iterate prototypes to produce final products. Being that the company is vertically integrated, all of its engineering, machining, manufacturing and sales operate together internally. While prototyping and hands-on problem-solving remain familiar, the real shift from college to industry comes when a proven idea must be transformed into a scalable product.

“Now you have to build a hundred or a thousand of them, and you face lots of issues that you don’t see in the classroom,” said Prisament. “I’m excited to take on the next challenge of an engineer’s journey, which is learning how to scale up the things that you start off with.”  

As Tutor Intelligence continues to evolve, Ramos and Prisament are excited to apply the builder mentality Olin helped cultivate: a mindset defined by curiosity, adaptability and the confidence to take ownership of complex challenges. 

“One of the big things I walked away with was learning how to be comfortable being uncomfortable,” said Ramos. “The discomfort of experience a new thing or changing the perspective has really helped me in an environment that’s constantly changing.”