AI Engineer, Vision & Foundation Models, Optimus

Tesla•Palo Alto, CA

About The Position

Tesla is solving robust embodied intelligence through humanoid robots. You will join the team building the vision and multimodal foundation models that allow Optimus to understand, interact, and navigate the world. Working at the intersection of large-scale deep learning and real-world robotics, you will own the full model lifecycle - from designing massive-scale data engines and auto labeling pipelines to architecting novel neural networks and deploying them to thousands of robots. Design and build scalable data pipelines, utilizing classical computer vision and off-the-shelf models to auto label massive video datasets Develop and train state-of-the-art foundational vision and multimodal networks, focusing on efficient tokenization, compression, and fusion of vision, language, audio, and tactile data Iterate on neural network architectures to improve perception, 3D understanding, and world modeling capabilities Optimize models for deployment on edge compute, utilizing quantization, pruning, and distillation to ensure real-time performance on the robot Collaborate with hardware and controls engineers to close the loop between perception and actuation in the real world

Requirements

Strong software engineering skills in Python with an ability to write production-quality code
Experience with PyTorch or another major deep learning framework (e.g., JAX, TensorFlow)
Experience training large-scale models on distributed GPU clusters

Nice To Haves

Strong mathematical fundamentals, including linear algebra, computational geometry, probability theory, and numerical optimization, are a plus
Familiarity with classical computer vision (camera models, calibration, sensor fusion) is a plus
Domain expertise in one or more of the following areas:
Foundational Vision: Vision encoder pretraining, dense prediction, segmentation
3D & Geometry: Multiview geometry, NeRFs, 3D Gaussian Splatting, geometric vision models
Multimodal Models: World models, video generation, vision-language-action models
Human/Object Reconstruction: Mesh reconstruction, hand pose estimation, human-object interaction, object affordance

Responsibilities

Design and build scalable data pipelines, utilizing classical computer vision and off-the-shelf models to auto label massive video datasets
Develop and train state-of-the-art foundational vision and multimodal networks, focusing on efficient tokenization, compression, and fusion of vision, language, audio, and tactile data
Iterate on neural network architectures to improve perception, 3D understanding, and world modeling capabilities
Optimize models for deployment on edge compute, utilizing quantization, pruning, and distillation to ensure real-time performance on the robot
Collaborate with hardware and controls engineers to close the loop between perception and actuation in the real world

Benefits

Along with competitive pay, as a full-time Tesla employee, you are eligible for the following benefits at day 1 of hire:
Medical plans > plan options with $0 payroll deduction
Family-building, fertility, adoption and surrogacy benefits
Dental (including orthodontic coverage) and vision plans, both have options with a $0 paycheck contribution
Company Paid (Health Savings Accounts) HSA Contribution when enrolled in the High-Deductible medical plan with HSA
Healthcare and Dependent Care Flexible Spending Accounts (FSA)
401(k) with employer match, Employee Stock Purchase Plans, and other financial benefits
Company paid Basic Life, AD&D
Short-term and long-term disability insurance (90 day waiting period)
Employee Assistance Program
Sick and Vacation time (Flex time for salary positions, Accrued hours for Hourly positions), and Paid Holidays
Back-up childcare and parenting support resources
Voluntary benefits to include: critical illness, hospital indemnity, accident insurance, theft & legal services, and pet insurance
Weight Loss and Tobacco Cessation Programs
Tesla Babies program
Commuter benefits
Employee discounts and perks program