Staff Machine Learning Engineer

About the Position

Staff Machine Learning Engineer

San Francisco, CA

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Atoms is building the machines that power the next era of progress. We are transforming the physical world by developing Physical AI-real-world robots for industries like food, mining, and transport. Our systems are designed to understand, predict, and control the real world with precision, making complex physical operations more reliable, scalable, and productive.

We are seeking a visionary Machine Learning Engineer to join our founding team. You will help bridge the gap between high-level AI research and real-world physical actuation for our next-generation autonomous transport platforms. We are actively hiring across three core specialized subcategories: AI Research, Post-Training Optimization, and Data Engineering.

Responsibilities

AI Researcher (World Models & VLA)

• Research and develop cutting-edge RL and distillation techniques for trajectory planning
• Integrate emerging research from the broader AI community, identifying and prototyping the most promising solutions
• Design and deploy end-to-end multimodal models that translate real-time visual perception and high-level behavioral goals into physical vehicle actuation
• Develop interactive world models from raw multi-sensor logs, allowing the team to re-simulate events and query what a vehicle would see if it altered its trajectory
• Ensure core autonomous driving models can seamlessly adapt to novel urban environments and edge cases
• Partner with validation and QA teams to run model releases through rigorous simulated scenarios, detecting regressions and identifying systemic performance bottlenecks.

Post-Training & Optimization

• Own the post-training lifecycle by distilling, quantizing, and optimizing massive models to run with low latency on vehicle edge hardware.
• Profile real-time inference pipelines to identify and eliminate CPU, GPU, and memory bandwidth bottlenecks on the vehicle.
• Work with low-level hardware, electrical, and firmware teams to iterate on custom carrier boards, sensor interfaces, and GPUs on edge devices.
• Benchmark and deploy models utilizing hardware-accelerated runtimes (e.g., TensorRT, CUDA) to minimize inference times under strict constraints.

Data & Long-Tail Scenarios

• Architect automated pipelines to ingest, filter, and identify rare, high-value, and long-tail scenarios out of multi-petabyte multi-sensor datasets.
• Target and extract complex structural corner cases from real-world driving logs to continuously feed, challenge, and improve our end-to-end behavior models.
• Iterate closely with QA, testing, and simulation teams to transform ambiguous real-world anomalies into concrete data blocks for simulation testing.
• Implement programmatic data curation, active learning strategies, and statistical quality metrics to optimize the signal-to-noise ratio of our training pipelines.

Requirements

• 10+ years of non-internship professional MLE experience.
• Deep expertise in applying AI Transformers to robotics, physical actuation, or spatial-temporal data.
• Proven track record designing or training multimodal systems, large-scale VLA models, or generative Diffusion models.
• Strong background in Sensor Fusion, combining inputs from Cameras, LiDAR, and Radar.
• Fluency in PyTorch or JAX for training large-scale models.
• Experience with multi-task learning, Birds-Eye-View (BEV) frameworks, representation learning, or data tokenization is highly preferred.
• Proficiency in Python and familiarity with C++.

We Offer

• Competitive base salary range: $273,000 - $345,000 per year
• Equity awards
• Annual performance-based bonus
• Comprehensive benefits package including Medical, Dental, Vision, Disability, and Life Insurance
• Flexible Spending Account / Health Savings Account Options
• 401(k)
• Sick Time, Unlimited Flexible Time Off, and Paid Holidays
• Paid Parental Leave
• Pre-Tax Commuter Benefit Plan
• Team lunch in our SoMa office every Tuesday and Thursday

About the Company

At Atoms, you’ll work on one of the defining challenges of our time - bringing automation into the physical world to drive real, lasting impact. We exist to uncover valuable unknown truths and turn them into progress, which means constantly pushing beyond what’s known and building what doesn’t yet exist. The work is ambitious and often challenging, but it’s grounded in a shared sense of purpose and a team committed to seeing it through together. Our work only matters if it serves others, and we know that meaningful progress depends on the trust of the people we serve and the strength of our team-so we invest in both, creating an environment where you can do your best work and grow.

Apply for this job

This role is based in our San Francisco office. Atoms is a company driven by invention and continuous change - we are constantly reimagining our industries, building new products, and refining how we operate. We do our best work together. That’s why all of our office-based teams work onsite, five days a week.

Atoms accepts applications on an ongoing basis.