Member of Technical Staff, TLM: Research Scientist

Odyssey; Palo Alto (CA); On-site; USD 180,000 - 260,000; Full time

Job summary

Odyssey is an AI lab pioneering world models that learn to predict and interact with the world over long horizons. We seek a staff-level or senior ML researcher who defines problems, mentors a small group, and helps shape the field through original research in generative modeling, video synthesis, and multimodal learning.

You’ll own a long-horizon agenda, translate breakthroughs into prototypes with engineering, publish at NeurIPS/ICML/ICLR, and collaborate in a focused, autonomous lab

Qualifications

• Staff-level or senior ML researcher with a strong publication record.
• Experience leading or mentoring a research group.
• Focus on generative modeling, video synthesis, or multimodal learning.

Responsibilities

• Define and drive original research into world modeling: temporal coherence, causal reasoning, long-horizon prediction.
• Move beyond diffusion and transformer paradigms—design novel architectures and learning objectives.
• Build and mentor a small, high-output research group, guiding work from hypothesis through validation to prototype.
• Translate foundational breakthroughs into stable prototypes in close collaboration with engineering.
• Publish at top-tier venues (NeurIPS, ICML, ICLR) and engage the broader research community.

Skills

Publications

Mentorship

Leadership

First principles

Job description

Who we are

Odyssey is an AI lab pioneering general world models: causal, multimodal systems that learn to predict and interact with the world over long horizons. This foundational technology promises to revolutionize robotics, science, healthcare, education, gaming, defense, and beyond.

Odyssey’s founders previously pioneered the most complex application of physical AI: self-driving cars. They’ve now brought together a world-class research team from DeepMind, Tesla, Waymo, Meta, Apple, and Wayve, who have made significant contributions to language models (DeepMind Gemini), video models (DeepMind Veo), world models (Wayve GAIA), and autonomous systems (Tesla FSD).

Odyssey has raised significant venture capital from GV, Amazon, AMD, EQT, NVIDIA, Natural Capital, In‑Q‑Tel, Elad Gil, Jeff Dean, Guillermo Rauch, Garry Tan, Kyle Vogt, and researchers from OpenAI, DeepMind, MSL, Recursive, and Thinking Machines.

What we’re looking for

As we scale our research ambitions, we need a scientist who doesn’t just execute on known problems but defines new ones. This TLM role sits at the intersection of deep technical research and scientific leadership: you’ll own a long‑horizon agenda, mentor a small group, and help shape what this field becomes.

What you’ll do

• Define and drive original research into the foundational open problems of world modeling: temporal coherence, causal reasoning, long‑horizon prediction, and user‑intent alignment.

• Move beyond diffusion and transformer paradigms — design novel architectures, learning objectives, and training frameworks that reframe what generative interactive video can do.

• Build and mentor a small, high‑output research group, guiding work from hypothesis through experimental validation to prototype demonstration.

• Translate foundational breakthroughs into stable prototypes in close collaboration with engineering. Not incremental improvements, but genuinely new capabilities.

• Publish at top‑tier venues (NeurIPS, ICML, ICLR) and actively engage the broader research community to help Odyssey shape the direction of the field.

Who you are

• A staff‑level or senior ML researcher with a strong publication record in generative modeling, video synthesis, multimodal learning, or adjacent areas.

• Someone who works from first principles: you define the problem before reaching for a method, and you build minimal systems to prove what’s possible before scaling.

• Motivated by understanding: you care about why models work, not just that they do.

• Experienced leading or mentoring a small research group, with a track record of taking projects from open question to publication or deployment.

• Comfortable in a focused, autonomous lab environment where deep thinking and tight collaboration are the norm.

• Excited to help establish the scientific foundation of a new medium, one that will define how AI perceives and interacts through pixels over the next decade.