Machine Learning Engineer – World Modeling

Institute of Foundation Models; Abu Dhabi; On-site; AED 331,000 - 441,000; Full time

Job summary

The Institute of Foundation Models (IFM) at MBZUAI is seeking a Machine Learning Engineer to own the PAN world model backbone. You will design and sustain large‑scale data pipelines, distributed training for diffusion transformers, and game‑engine simulation environments for world‑model integration into robotics.

You will apply PyTorch expertise to debug training/inference, build scalable systems, and collaborate with researchers to translate ideas into reliable production features.

Qualifications

• Degree or higher in ML, CS, Robotics or related field.
• Hands-on with state-of-the-art video generative models and world models (Cosmos-3, LTX 2.3, Self-Forcing, Lingbot-World or equivalents).
• Deep expertise in at least one area: data pipelines, model training, rendering/simulation, or robotics integration.
• Strong engineering in PyTorch and ability to debug training/inference issues.

Responsibilities

• Build and maintain large-scale video and simulation data pipelines for world model training.
• Develop distributed training systems for diffusion transformers and world models.
• Create interactive simulation environments (Unreal Engine, Blueprint gyms) for training and evaluating world models.
• Integrate world action models into robotics systems; optimize end-to-end performance.

Skills

Video models

World models

Diffusion transformers

PyTorch

Robotics integration

Education

BSc or above in ML/CS/Robotics

Tools

Unreal Engine

Blueprint-based engines

Job description

About The Institute Of Foundation Models

The Institute of Foundation Models (IFM) at MBZUAI is a research lab dedicated to meaningful foundation model research — building models from scratch, understanding them deeply, and publishing work that shapes the field. You’ll work alongside world-class researchers and engineers on problems that directly define the models we ship.

The Role

Join the PAN world model project — our effort to build world models: foundation models that simulate, predict, and interact with the physical world. As a Machine Learning Engineer, you’ll own the engineering backbone of PAN: large-scale video and simulation data pipelines, distributed training for diffusion transformers, game‑engine simulation environments, and world-model integration into robotics — turning research ideas into reliable, scalable systems.

What You’ll Do

• Build and maintain large-scale video and simulation data pipelines — collection, cleaning, annotation, and filtering — to support world model training


• Develop and optimize distributed training systems for large-scale diffusion transformers and world models


• Build interactive simulation environments (e.g., Unreal Engine, Blueprint-based gyms, game integrations) for training and evaluating world models


• Integrate world action models / video action models into robotics systems


• Optimize inference and serving for real-time interaction, and turn research prototypes into reliable, reproducible systems

What We’re Looking For

• BSc or above in Machine Learning, Computer Science, Robotics, or a related field, or equivalent industry experience


• Hands‑on experience with state‑of‑the‑art video generative models and world models (e.g., Cosmos‑3, LTX 2.3, Self‑Forcing, Lingbot‑World, or comparable systems)


• Deep expertise in at least one of the following areas:




• Full-stack data pipelines — large-scale video data pipelines and/or simulation data collection; annotation and filtering workflows for video / world model training


• Model training & infrastructure — training large‑scale diffusion transformers on large GPU clusters


• Rendering engines & simulation — Unreal Engine and Blueprint‑based gym environments, game‑engine integration, building interactive simulated environments


• World action models & robotics — world action models / video action models, action‑conditioned video generation, world‑model applications in robotics




• Strong engineering expertise in deep learning frameworks such as PyTorch, with the ability to debug failures across the training/inference stack (memory issues, deadlocks, I/O bottlenecks)


• Highly proficient with modern AI coding agents and web‑based coding tools (e.g., Claude Code, Codex, Cursor), and skilled at leveraging them to dramatically accelerate engineering workflows

Nice to Have

• Experience accelerating diffusion model inference (distillation, few‑step generation, real‑time interactive generation)


• Practical experience with web scraping and crawling frameworks (e.g., scrapy, playwright, selenium) for web‑scale data curation


• Experience with Unreal Engine C++/Blueprint development or other game‑engine programming


• Experience deploying world models in robotics or embodied‑AI settings