Research Scientist (Spatial AI & Neural Reconstruction)

Mecka; New York (NY); On-site; USD 200,000 - 250,000; Full time

Job summary

Mecka AI is hiring a Research Scientist to architect and train foundation models for 3D spatial and temporal perception. You will build in-house 3D reconstruction tools and robust optical flow models for egocentric vision, enabling advanced perception for embodied AI.

You will work with massive proprietary data, train end-to-end perception loops, and push the frontier in dense reconstruction and neural rendering within a fast-changing robotics domain.

Qualifications

• Deep expertise in Deep Learning, 3D Computer Vision, and Temporal/Video Modeling.
• Proven experience training large-scale vision models from scratch, not just running inference or fine-tuning.
• Strong theoretical and practical understanding of modern feed-forward 3D networks and dense motion estimation.
• Mastery of PyTorch and deep learning scaling frameworks.
• Experience handling and curating massive, multi-terabyte image and video datasets for training.

Responsibilities

• Architect proprietary spatial models from scratch, including 3D geometry extraction architectures.
• Scale multi-view ML architectures across multi-GPU clusters for large spatial datasets.
• Develop novel loss functions and attention mechanisms for data distributions.

Skills

Deep Learning

3D Computer Vision

Temporal/Video Modeling

PyTorch

Large-scale training

Multi-terabyte datasets

CUDA kernels

Tools

CUDA

Job description

About Mecka AI

Mecka AI is building the data infrastructure layer for robotics and embodied AI.

Mecka AI is building the data infrastructure layer for robotics and embodied AI.

We design and operate global systems for data capture, data labeling, and hardware-enabled workflows used by leading AI labs and robotics companies to train and validate humanoid and embodied AI systems.

We work closely with frontier robotics teams to bridge real-world data, simulation, learning-based systems, and deployed hardware.

Mecka AI is building the data infrastructure layer for robotics and embodied AI. We partner with leading AI labs and robotics companies to deliver high-quality, real-world datasets used to train, evaluate, and deploy robotic systems—where model performance is dictated by data quality.

The Role

While our existing perception division handles classical state estimation and VIO, this role is dedicated to the next generation of spatial and temporal intelligence. We are hiring a Research Scientist to architect and train proprietary foundation models from scratch.

Your core mandate is twofold: building our in-house equivalents to cutting‑edge 3D reconstruction architectures, and developing highly robust optical flow models tailored for the chaotic domain of egocentric vision. Beyond these core pillars, you will serve as a lead problem‑solver for emergent perception challenges as our hardware and downstream robotics needs evolve.

To achieve this, we can provide a massive, continuous stream of high-quality, proprietary ground‑truth data captured by our infrastructure. You will use this data advantage to train networks that surpass current public baselines, owning the complete spatial‑temporal perception loop for our data engine.

What You'll Work On

Architecting Proprietary Spatial Models

• Zero-to-One Model Development: Design, implement, and train state-of-the-art feed-forward network and per-scene differential optimization architectures for 3D geometry extraction.
• Large-Scale Distributed Training: Scale multi-view ML architectures across multi-GPU clusters to handle massive, multi-modal spatial datasets.
• Loss & Architecture Innovation: Push the boundaries of current paradigms by developing novel loss functions and attention mechanisms tailored to our specific data distributions.

Egocentric Optical Flow & Temporal Dynamics

• Egocentric Motion Modeling: Build and train custom optical flow architectures capable of handling the extreme motion blur, rapid rotations, and sudden occlusions inherent in head‑mounted or robot‑mounted cameras.
• Dynamic Scene Understanding: Use your flow models to segment dynamic actors, track objects through complex manipulations, and provide motion regularization for downstream action‑conditioned world models.

Emergent Perception R&D

• Rapid Prototyping: Tackle novel, unmapped AI challenges as they arise. You will rapidly prototype and deploy new models for tasks spanning tracking, segmentation, multi‑modal sensor fusion, and beyond.
• Agile Problem Solving: Pivot to resolve sudden algorithmic bottlenecks in the data engine, adapting the latest research to unblock new product capabilities or hardware integrations.

Next‑Level Dense Reconstruction

• Neural Rendering Integration: Connect the outputs of your foundational models into highly optimized, large‑scale dense reconstruction pipelines (3D Gaussian Splatting, NeRFs) to generate photorealistic environments.

Who You Are

Required Background

• Deep expertise in Deep Learning, 3D Computer Vision, and Temporal/Video Modeling.
• Proven experience training large-scale vision models from scratch, not just running inference or fine-tuning.
• Strong theoretical and practical understanding of modern feed-forward 3D networks and dense motion estimation.
• Mastery of PyTorch and deep learning scaling frameworks.
• Experience handling and curating massive, multi-terabyte image and video datasets for training.
• Comfortable operating in a fast‑paced environment where priorities can shift rapidly to capitalize on new research or hardware capabilities.
• Warning: Research Scientist positions require hyper‑specific expertise. Please limit your applications to one research role. Applying to multiple Research Scientist positions suggests a lack of focus and may result in the rejection of all submissions. You may, however, apply to other non-research roles alongside your research application.

Strong Signals

• First-author publications in top-tier venues (CVPR, ICCV, ECCV, NeurIPS) focusing on 3D deep learning, optical flow, video generation, or spatial transformers.
• Specific experience working with egocentric video datasets (e.g., Ego4D, Ego-Exo4D) and solving the unique optimization challenges they present.
• Experience writing custom CUDA kernels to accelerate 3D operations, ray marching, or correlation volume computations.

Why This Role

• The Data Advantage: You will have access to a scale and quality of proprietary spatial and temporal ground truth that most academic researchers only dream of.
• Pure R&D & Model Ownership: You are not maintaining legacy systems; you are given a blank slate and the compute resources to build the state-of-the-art.
• High Impact: The spatial priors and motion models you architect will directly define how the next generation of embodied AI agents perceive and move through the physical world.

Inclusive Hiring at Mecka

We are committed to creating an inclusive and supportive candidate experience. Should you require any accommodation whatsoever during the interview process, please inform us without any hesitation. Mecka is dedicated to ensuring equal treatment and opportunity in all phases of recruitment, selection, and employment, in compliance with employment law. We do not discriminate based on gender, race, religion, national origin, ethnicity, disability, gender identity/expression, sexual orientation, veteran or military status, or any other protected category. Mecka is proud to be an equal opportunity employer, fostering a culture of inclusivity and maintaining a work environment that is free from discrimination, harassment, and retaliation.

Use of Artificial Intelligence in Recruitment

Mecka uses artificial intelligence (AI) responsibly to support administrative and efficiency-focused aspects of our recruitment process. This includes activities such as drafting job descriptions, generating interview questions, note-taking and recordings, and supporting sourcing and scheduling workflows. All candidate evaluations, interviews, and hiring decisions are made by members of the Mecka team. While AI tools may assist with screening and assessment, they do not replace human judgment in selection decisions. Our use of AI is intended to streamline routine tasks, improve consistency, and enhance the overall candidate experience. We are committed to upholding principles of fairness, transparency, and accountability in all hiring activities. Mecka regularly reviews its recruitment practices to mitigate bias and to ensure alignment with applicable laws and evolving best practices.

Compensation Range: $200K - $250K