Head of AI Foundation & World-Model Systems

Merlin Labs; Boston (MA); On-site; USD 180,000 - 250,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Health insurance

Dental insurance

Life insurance

Unlimited vacation

401k with match

Catered lunches

Snacks and beverages

Job summary

Merlin Labs in Boston, MA seeks a senior AI systems leader to own foundation and world-model work, shaping the architecture, build-vs-adapt decisions, and the capability roadmap that supports autonomy across missions.

You will lead a small team of world-model and post-training engineers, set the technical bar, and define evaluation harnesses and regression suites that gate every model release in partnership with Data/Sim/Release teams.

Qualifications

• 8+ years building AI systems and ML models.
• Proven track record shipping AI models into production in high-stakes environments.
• Ownership of learned systems deployed in real-time products (robotics/automation).
• Experience with world models, planning, or post-training techniques.
• Strong Python; ability to read and reason about C++ real-time components.

Responsibilities

• Own Merlin's foundation and world-model strategy and roadmap.
• Lead and mentor a small team of world-model and post-training engineers.
• Design interfaces between models and the autonomy stack with deterministic verification.
• Define evaluation harnesses and regression suites to gate releases.
• Establish uncertainty quantification and out-of-distribution detection for safety.
• Benchmark learned planning against rule-based systems across mission profiles.
• Collaborate with Systems Engineering and Certification to stay within defensible design space.
• Track external research and make disciplined adoption decisions.

Skills

Team leadership

Clear communication

Problem solving

Education

Degree in Computer Science or related field

Tools

PyTorch

C++ (real-time systems)

Job description

Merlin Labs in Boston, MA seeks a senior AI systems leader to own foundation and world-model work, shaping the architecture, build-vs-adapt decisions, and the capability roadmap that supports autonomy across missions.

You will lead a small team of world-model and post-training engineers, set the technical bar, and define evaluation harnesses and regression suites that gate every model release in partnership with Data/Sim/Release teams.