Research Scientist, Embodied AI

Javelin Venture Partners; Greater London; Hybrid; GBP 104,000 - 203,000; Full time

Job summary

Niantic Spatial in London is seeking a Research Scientist to advance Spatial AI and contribute to the Large Geospatial Model within the Embodied AI group. You will invent algorithms at the intersection of computer vision, ML, graphics, and robotics, with a focus on real-to-sim pipelines and production-ready prototyping.

The role requires a PhD or equivalent research background with a strong publication record, experience in sim-to-real transfer, and proficiency in Python and PyTorch.

Qualifications

• PhD or equivalent research experience with a strong publication record.
• Substantial expertise in robotics or embodied AI, incl. sim-to-real transfer and domain randomization.
• Experience with 3D scene representations: Gaussian splatting, neural fields, meshes, point clouds, or implicit representations.
• Applied generative or diffusion models to 3D data (scene completion, inpainting, relighting, or novel view synthesis).
• Experience with 3D semantics, open-vocabulary scene understanding, or scene graphs.
• Proficiency in Python and PyTorch.
• GPU/graphics programming with CUDA, shaders, or differentiable rendering.
• Track record of contributing to open-source research codebases.

Responsibilities

• Develop new spatial representations for embodied AI to learn from, train, and act on.
• Advance real-to-sim pipelines connecting real-world observations to 3D reconstruction and robotic policy learning.
• Solve spatial intelligence problems related to 3D scene representation and model efficiency.
• Take new capabilities through to evidence: assess policy impact and reconstruction changes.
• Build prototypes, eventually running at production scale on customer data.
• Collaborate with researchers, engineers, and product teams to bring models to production.
• Publish and present your work.

Skills

Python

Deep Learning

3D Vision

Research Skills

Collaboration

Education

PhD in computer vision/robotics/graphics/ML or related field

Tools

PyTorch

CUDA

Shaders

Differentiable rendering

Job description

About Niantic Spatial

At Niantic Spatial, we're building the future of physical AI. Powered by a proprietary database of over 30 billion posed images, our groundbreaking mapping technology unlocks a new dimension of interaction and spatial intelligence that helps both humans and machines better understand, represent, navigate, and engage with the real environment.

Niantic Spatial

Software Engineering, Data Science

• Full-time

London, UK

GBP 103,500-202,500 / year + Equity

About Niantic Spatial

At Niantic Spatial, we're building the future of physical AI. Powered by a proprietary database of over 30 billion posed images, our groundbreaking mapping technology unlocks a new dimension of interaction and spatial intelligence that helps both humans and machines better understand, represent, navigate, and engage with the real environment.

Our reconstruction technology captures environments with geometric accuracy and extreme detail from any standard camera, and our Visual Positioning System delivers precise positioning almost anywhere in the world. We serve customers across robotics, the public sector, and energy and industrial markets - building for the 80% of economic activity that takes place beyond our screens.

About The Role

Niantic Spatial makes the physical world computable, helping people and machines collaborate safely by aligning how they understand reality. One of the fundamental problems we're helping autonomy teams and engineers overcome is the sim-to-real gap for visual-spatial understanding. We're applying our team's decades of experience encoding the world precisely as it is at Google Maps, Google Earth, and Niantic Labs to build the scalable real-to-sim stack for embodied AI.

Niantic Spatial's R&D Team in London is seeking a Research Scientist to push the frontiers of Spatial AI, advancing our Large Geospatial Model as a dedicated member of the Embodied AI group. You will invent and develop algorithms and systems that sit at the cross-section of computer vision, machine learning, AI, graphics, and robotics.

We're passionate about discovery, so we're looking for scientists who want to learn, publish, teach, and deploy every new invention.

What You'll Do

• Develop New Spatial Representations - Develop new spatial representations that embodied AI can learn from, train in, and act on.
• Advance Real-to-Sim Pipelines - Advance real-to-sim pipelines connecting real-world observations, 3D reconstruction, simulation, and robotic policy learning.
• Solve Emerging Spatial Problems - Solve emerging problems that relate to spatial intelligence, 3D scene representation, training data, model efficiency, and interactive systems.
• Take Capabilities Through to Evidence - Take new capabilities through to evidence: what changed for the policy, not only what changed in the reconstruction.
• Build Prototypes - Build proof of concept prototypes, initially for internal use, where some will need to run at production scale on customer data.
• Collaborate Across Research and Product - Collaborate closely with researchers, engineers, and product partners to bring novel models to production.
• Publish Your Work - Publish and present your work.

What You'll Bring

• A PhD in computer vision, robotics, graphics, machine learning, or a related field, or equivalent research experience, with a publication record at top venues.
• Substantial expertise in robotics or embodied AI, including experience in sim-to-real transfer, domain randomization, policy evaluation, and simulation-based learning.
• Deep experience with 3D scene representations: Gaussian splatting, neural fields, meshes, point clouds, or implicit representations.
• You have applied generative or diffusion models to 3D data, such as scene completion, inpainting, relighting, or novel view synthesis from sparse capture.
• You have worked on 3D semantics, open-vocabulary scene understanding, or scene graphs.
• Proficiency in Python and Deep Learning libraries such as PyTorch.
• GPU or graphics programming experience, such as custom CUDA kernels, shaders, or differentiable rendering.
• A track record of contributing to widely used open-source research codebases.

Nice to Have

• Proficiency in C++.

Compensation & Benefits

Base salary range of £103,500 to £202,500. Compensation also includes an annual bonus, equity, and a comprehensive benefits package.

Location & Work Model

This role is based in our London office, with three days per week in office.

Inclusive Application

We know the strongest candidates don't always tick every box. If you're excited about this role and believe you could do it well, we encourage you to apply even if your experience doesn't match every qualification listed - you may be exactly who we're looking for.

Equal Opportunity

Niantic Spatial is an equal opportunity employer. Individuals seeking employment at Niantic Spatial are considered without regard to race, color, ancestry, national origin, religion, creed, age, gender (including pregnancy, childbirth, breastfeeding or related medical conditions), marital status, physical or mental disability, medical condition, genetic information, military or veteran status, gender identity, gender expression, sexual orientation, or any other protected category under applicable laws. Niantic Spatial will also consider qualified applicants with criminal histories in accordance with applicable laws. Please contact your recruiter if you want to request an accommodation for the job application or interview process.

Candidate Privacy

I understand that by submitting my job application, the information I provide as part of that application will be used in accordance with Niantic Spatial's Privacy Notice for Job Applicants and Candidates https://www.nianticspatial.com/applicant-privacy-notice.