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

Nuro; Mountain View (CA); On-site; USD 194,000 - 352,000; Full time

Job summary

Nuro is seeking a Senior/Staff Machine Learning Research Scientist to advance generative modeling for autonomous driving planning. You will collaborate with researchers and engineers to develop diffusion, flow matching, and energy-based models, and productize them for robust deployments on a global scale.

The role emphasizes end-to-end model ownership, strong publication background, and cross-team collaboration to address topology planning challenges using foundation models and reinforcement

Qualifications

• Ph.D. (preferable) or MSc with 3+ years of experience with generative models in the lab or industry.
• Research experiences in generative models, particularly diffusion models, flow matching and energy-based models, for robotics including manipulation, path planning, and autonomous driving.
• Strong problem solving and programming skills in Python and/or C++.
• Strong culture fit and good team player.
• Demonstrated research publications in top conferences (NeurIPS, ICLR, ICML, CVPR, RSS, CoRL, etc.).

Responsibilities

• 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 and leverage LLMs and world foundation models for reasoning, decision making and multi-modality generation.
• Optimize generative models using reinforcement learning to improve interactive reasoning and explore reward modeling/learned verifier.
• Develop controllable generative models to guide the generation process towards desired goals and rewards.
• Collaborate across autonomy teams to develop holistic solutions and deploy models on the NuroDriver.

Skills

Python

C++

Generative models

Diffusion models

Reinforcement learning

Education

Ph.D. or MSc with 3+ years experience

Job description

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

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.

Voluntary Self-Identification

For government reporting purposes, we ask candidates to respond to the below self‑identification survey.Completion of the form is entirely voluntary. Whatever your decision, it will not be considered in the hiringprocess or thereafter. Any information that you do provide will be recorded and maintained in aconfidential file.

As set forth in Nuro’s Equal Employment Opportunity policy,we do not discriminate on the basis of any protected group status under any applicable law.

If you believe you belong to any of the categories of protected veterans listed below, please indicate by making the appropriate selection.As a government contractor subject to the Vietnam Era Veterans Readjustment Assistance Act (VEVRAA), we request this information in order to measurethe effectiveness of the outreach and positive recruitment efforts we undertake pursuant to VEVRAA. Classification of protected categoriesis as follows:

A "disabled veteran" is one of the following: a veteran of the U.S. military, ground, naval or air service who is entitled to compensation (or who but for the receipt of military retired pay would be entitled to compensation) under laws administered by the Secretary of Veterans Affairs; or a person who was discharged or released from active duty because of a service‑connected disability.

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