Senior AI/ML Engineer - Data Scaling, Embodied AI Data Foundations

General Motors; Markham; Hybrid; CAD 173,000 - 242,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Paid time off

Healthcare benefits

Life insurance

Pension plan (Defined contribution)

GM Vehicle Purchase Plan

Job summary

General Motors is seeking an experienced Senior AI/ML Engineer in the Embodied AI Data Foundations group. You will develop data-centric AI solutions to improve autonomous driving performance, designing data curation and model training recipes for safe, reliable behavior across diverse real-world scenarios using real and synthetic data.

Responsibilities include running experiments, applying pre-training and reinforcement learning, and scaling training across large multi-GPU setups while

Qualifications

• Master's or PhD in Computer Science, Robotics, Machine Learning.
• Strong ML fundamentals: design clean experiments, pick baselines, read ablations.
• Proficiency in Python and PyTorch, with experience on large datasets.
• Hands-on data-centric ML: curation, labeling, evaluation of large training sets.
• Known with large-scale foundation models and pre-training/fine-tuning.

Responsibilities

• Design and run experiments connecting data composition to model behavior.
• Apply self-supervised pre-training, imitation learning, reinforcement learning, and fine-tuning for driving tasks.
• Develop data curation and mining methods to raise training data value.
• Define offline metrics and evaluations predicting on-road behavior.
• Trace model failures to data root causes and specify data fixes.
• Train models at scale across multi-GPU/multi-node datasets, coordinating with platform teams.
• Collaborate with cross-functional teams to integrate models into onboard driving systems.
• Follow relevant literature and bring advances into recipes and evaluations.

Skills

Python

PyTorch

Data-centric ML

Experiment design

Large-scale ML training

Communication

English

Education

Master's or PhD in Computer Science/Robotics/ML

Tools

NumPy

Pandas

SQL

Job description

Vacancy Status:

Job Description

Vacancy Status:

No: This posting is not for an existing vacancy within the organization and is open to new applications. (New Head Count)

AI Disclosure

As part of the application process, Artificial Intelligence will be used in the hiring process for this role.

Hybrid -

This role is categorized as hybrid. This means the successful candidate is expected to report to Markham three times per week, at minimum [or other frequency dictated by the business].

At General Motors, we're turning today's impossible into tomorrow's standard. Our vehicles already move millions of people every day, and we're building the autonomy that will drive them - L2 through L4, on real roads, at real scale. Making self-driving safe at that scale is one of the hardest AI problems there is.

The Data Scaling team owns the data flywheel for AV foundation model pre-training and SFT. We determine what data the AV needs in order to learn driving behaviors at scale, and we define what data quality means across the loop. The team delivers ML models that move the product up the data scaling curves, turning better data composition into measurably better driving behavior. We work with the very large datasets GM already has and we define the next generation of highest-value datasets GM collects. With each major release we aim to 10x the effective data behind our models: more scale, more diversity, and more value extracted from every example.

Why Join Us

• Train on driving data almost nobody else has - real-world miles from GM's fleet, plus synthetic sim data - scaling into billions of examples. Then decide which ones are worth it: ten thousand near-identical highway miles teach the model less than one unprotected left turn in the rain. Mixture design, curation, mining, and evaluation are how you find out which is which, working alongside other MLEs and research scientists.
• Work on questions with no textbook answers yet. Scaling laws for language are well mapped by now; for embodied driving data - heavy-tailed, safety-constrained, closed-loop - they aren't. You'd be helping write them, and we support publishing what you find.
• See your results in the world rather than on a leaderboard. The models this team ships change how the vehicle behaves on real roads, and that behavior comes back as the evidence for your next iteration.

As a Senior AI/ML Engineer in the Embodied AI Data Foundations organization, you will be an individual contributor developing data-centric AI solutions that directly improve autonomous driving performance. You will design and run the data curation and model training recipes that produce models capable of safe, reliable behavior across diverse real-world scenarios, drawing on both real and synthetic data.

What You'll Do

• Design and run experiments that connect data composition to model behavior: dataset mixtures, sampling strategies, curricula, and scaling-law studies that tell us where to invest next.
• Apply methods such as self-supervised pre-training, imitation learning, reinforcement learning, and foundation-model fine-tuning to driving behavior, trajectory generation, and perception tasks.
• Develop data curation and mining methods - auto-labeling, deduplication, difficulty and uncertainty estimation, long-tail and out-of-distribution scenario discovery - to raise the value of every training example.
• Define offline metrics and evaluations that actually predict on-road behavior, and use them to make model and data decisions from evidence rather than intuition.
• Trace model failures back to their root cause in the data, then close the loop by specifying the data needed to fix them.
• Train models at scale across large multi-GPU/multi-node datasets, partnering with platform teams on the pipelines and tooling this requires.
• Collaborate with cross-functional teams to bring models into onboard driving systems, and document learnings and best practices along the way.
• Follow relevant literature and bring promising advances into our recipes and evaluations.

Your Skills And Abilities (Required Qualifications)

• Master's or PhD in Computer Science, Robotics, Machine Learning.
• Strong ML fundamentals: you can design a clean experiment, pick the right baseline, read an ablation, and tell signal from noise.
• Proficiency in Python and PyTorch, with experience training models on large datasets.
• Hands-on experience with data-centric ML: curation, sampling, labeling, or evaluation of large training sets.
• Working knowledge of large-scale foundation models and how they are pre-trained, fine-tuned, and aligned.
• Solid data analysis skills (NumPy, Pandas; SQL or Spark for large datasets).
• Demonstrated ability to deliver applied ML results under real-world constraints and timelines.
• Clear communication: you can explain a result and its limits to both engineers and non-experts.

Preferred

• PhD, publications, or open-source contributions in representation learning, multimodal or vision-language models, generative models, RL, or data-centric ML.
• Experience with robotics, autonomous driving, or other embodied AI systems.
• Experience with synthetic and simulation data, including sim-to-real transfer.
• Familiarity with production ML deployment workflows.

Compensation

The salary range for this role is $125,000 to $174,500. The actual base salary a successful candidate will be offered within this range will vary based on factors relevant to the position.

GM DOES NOT PROVIDE IMMIGRATION-RELATED SPONSORSHIP FOR THIS ROLE. DO NOT APPLY FOR THIS ROLE IF YOU WILL NEED GM IMMIGRATION SPONSORSHIP NOW OR IN THE FUTURE

Benefits

The goal of the General Motors of Canada total rewards program is to support the health and well-being of you and your family. Our comprehensive compensation plan currently includes the following benefits, in addition to many others:

• Paid time off including vacation days, holidays, and supplemental benefits for pregnancy, parental and adoption leave.
• Healthcare, dental and vision benefits including health care spending account and wellness incentive.
• Life insurance plans to cover you and your family.
• Company and matching contributions to a Defined Contribution Pension plan to help you save for retirement.
• GM Vehicle Purchase Plan for you, your family, and friends.

About GM

Our vision is a world with Zero Crashes, Zero Emissions and Zero Congestion and we embrace the responsibility to lead the change that will make our world better, safer and more equitable for all.

Why Join Us

We believe we all must make a choice every day – individually and collectively – to drive meaningful change through our words, our deeds and our culture. Every day, we want every employee to feel they belong to one General Motors team.

Non-Discrimination and Equal Employment Opportunities

General Motors is committed to being a workplace that is not only free of unlawful discrimination, but one that genuinely fosters inclusion and belonging. We strongly believe that providing an inclusive workplace creates an environment in which our employees can thrive and develop better products for our customers.

Applicants in the recruitment process may be required, where applicable, to successfully complete a role-related assessment(s) and/or a pre-employment screening prior to beginning employment.

Accommodations

General Motors offers opportunities to all job seekers including individuals with disabilities. If you need a reasonable accommodation to assist with your job search or application for employment, email us or call us at 1-800-865-7580. In your email, please include a description of the specific accommodation you are requesting as well as the job title and requisition number of the position for which you are applying.