Senior/Staff Machine Learning Research Scientist: Generative Modeling for Planning

Nuro; California (MO); On-site; USD 194,000 - 352,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Equity

Annual bonus

Benefits package

Job summary

Nuro is seeking a researcher to advance plan-generation using cutting-edge generative modeling techniques for autonomous driving. You will collaborate with researchers and engineers, owning end-to-end model lifecycle from development to robust deployment on a global scale.

Ideal candidates have PhD or MSc with 3+ years in generative modeling, strong Python/C++ skills, and a track record of publications in top venues.

Qualifications

• PhD or MSc with 3+ years in generative models research or industry.
• Experience with diffusion models, energy-based models, or flow matching in robotics/autonomy.
• Strong Python and/or C++ programming skills.

Responsibilities

• Develop and scale state-of-the-art generative models for autonomous plan generation.
• Build generative models with foundation models for reasoning and multi-modality generation.
• Optimize models with reinforcement learning to improve interactive reasoning and reward modeling.

Skills

Python

C++

Generative models

Education

Ph.D. (preferred)

M.Sc. with 3+ years experience

Tools

Diffusion models

Foundation models

Job description

Who We Are

Nuro believes self-driving vehicles are the most immediate and profound opportunity for AI to drive positive change in the physical world. Safer streets, more time for what matters, and easier access to the world around us, that’s why we’re building a universal autonomy platform: self-driving for all roads and all rides.

Founded in 2016, Nuro is a physical AI company developing Level 4 autonomous driving technology for a wide range of vehicles, use cases, and markets. Powered by the Nuro Driver™, our universal autonomy platform enables the global mobility ecosystem to deploy autonomy at scale, from robotaxis and logistics fleets to personal vehicles. With years of real-world deployment experience and a flexible, partner-led business model, Nuro is working toward a future where millions of autonomous vehicles powered by our technology help make everyday life safer, easier, and more connected.

Nuro has raised over $2B in capital from Uber, NVIDIA, Google, Softbank, Fidelity, T. Rowe Price, and other leading investors.

About the role

In this role, you will collaborate closely with researchers and engineers on the Learned Behavior teams to tackle plan generation challenges in autonomous driving. You’ll apply state-of-the‑art generative modeling techniques—ranging from cutting‑edge diffusion, flow matching, energy‑based models, and SoTA algorithms—in order to develop novel solutions that generate safe, comfortable, and efficient driving behaviors in the most challenging real world situations. Beyond core research, you’ll own the end‑to‑end lifecycle of your models, productizing them for robust, real‑world autonomous driving deployments on a global scale.

About the Work

• Develop and scale state-of-the‑art generative models—especially diffusion architectures, flow‑matching techniques, and energy‑based models —for autonomous plan generation.

• Build generative models with foundation models. Leverage large language models and world foundation models for reasoning, decision making and multi‑modality generation.

• Optimize generative models using reinforcement learning to improve interactive reasoning. Explore reward modeling/learned verifier using generative models. Explore joint prediction and planning and self‑play. Leverage generative models for active learning and world modeling.

• Develop controllable generative models to guide the generation process towards desired goals, conditions and rewards.

• Collaborate across autonomy teams while developing holistic solutions to top autonomy challenges. Understand issues, propose ideas, prioritize work and develop solutions to solve them, evaluate your solution by deploying the models on to the NuroDriver.

About You

You have deep expertise and prior experience in some or many of the following areas:

• You have a Ph.D. (preferable) or M.Sc. with 3+ years of experience working with generative models in the lab, in industry, or both.

• Research experiences in generative models, particularly diffusion models, flow matching and energy‑based models, for robotics, including manipulation, path planning, and autonomous driving. Experiences in vision‑language‑action models, reinforcement learning for generative model optimization, video generation, text‑to‑image generation, diffusion models for LLMs, world foundation models, and other applications of generative modeling are a bonus!

• You have strong problem solving and programming skills in Python and/or C++

• Strong culture fit and good team player.

Demonstrated research publications in top conferences (e.g. NeurIPS, ICLR, ICML, CVPR, RSS, CoRL etc.)

At Nuro, your base pay is one part of your total compensation package. For this position, the reasonably expected pay range is between $193,930 and $352,290/year for the level at which this job has been scoped. Your base pay will depend on several factors, including your experience, qualifications, education, location, and skills. In the event that you are considered for a different level, a higher or lower pay range would apply. This position is also eligible for an annual performance bonus, equity, and a competitive benefits package.

At Nuro, we celebrate differences and are committed to a diverse workplace that fosters inclusion and psychological safety for all employees. Nuro is proud to be an equal opportunity employer and expressly prohibits any form of workplace discrimination based on race, color, religion, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, national origin, age, genetic information, disability, veteran status, or any other legally protected characteristics.