Senior Research Scientist - Generative World Models for Autonomous Driving and Physical AI

Details

We are seeking an outstanding Research Scientist or Research Engineer with a passion for synthetic data generation and its application to training autonomous driving models. As part of NVIDIA's Physical AI Platform Research team, you will conduct research at the intersection of AI, simulation, and autonomy, helping develop the next generation of secure self-driving vehicles and Physical AI systems. The role combines software engineering with expertise in generative world models, end-to-end driving, reasoning, vision-language models, and simulation technologies. The ideal candidate will have experience translating research into scalable, production-ready solutions for autonomous driving and simulation, along with a strong publication record in leading AI and computer vision forums and journals such as NeurIPS, CVPR, ICCV, ECCV, ICLR, ICML, and TPAMI.

You will develop techniques that leverage generative world models and synthetic data to improve the training, evaluation, and generalization of end-to-end driving systems. Success requires strong analytical thinking, excellent communication skills, and effective collaboration across multidisciplinary teams to deliver research with real-world impact.

Responsibilities

• Research, prototype, and develop techniques using synthetic data, generative world models, and simulation to improve the training, evaluation, and generalization of next-generation autonomous driving systems.
• Collaborate across research and product organizations to translate AI advances into scalable technologies.
• Work with internal research teams, engineering, and product groups to accelerate innovation.
• Drive research direction and the technical roadmap of Alpamayo.
• Advance safe, robust, and scalable Level 4 autonomous vehicle capabilities through research and innovation transfer.

Requirements

• Ph.D. in Computer Science, Electrical Engineering, Robotics, or a related field, or equivalent experience.
• Six or more years of relevant professional experience with a strong background in deep learning, artificial intelligence, computer vision, machine learning, simulation, or autonomous systems.
• Proven research excellence, demonstrated through a strong publication record in leading AI and computer vision conferences and journals, such as NeurIPS, CVPR, ICCV, ECCV, ICLR, ICML, and TPAMI.
• Experience translating research into impactful, real-world systems.
• Exceptional software engineering skills, including expert-level Python programming and experience building scalable machine learning systems and contributing to large, collaborative codebases.
• Hands-on experience in one or more of synthetic data generation, generative environment representations, or simulation.
• Experience in end-to-end autonomous driving, vision-language models, foundation models, or reasoning for embodied AI is relevant.
• Strong communication and collaboration skills, with the ability to communicate complex technical ideas and drive projects from conception to deployment.
• Self-motivated, curious, and passionate about advancing the state of the art while delivering research that influences products deployed at scale.

Preferred Qualifications

• First-author publications in leading peer-reviewed AI and computer vision conferences or journals, including NeurIPS, CVPR, ICCV, ECCV, ICML, ICLR, or IEEE TPAMI.
• Hands-on software engineering experience developing production-quality AI systems for autonomous vehicles, 3D computer vision, generative world and foundation models, video understanding, or large-scale simulation.
• Experience translating new research into scalable, real-world products from early-stage prototyping through deployment.
• Experience leading or mentoring research projects, collaborating with diverse groups, and driving technical direction in fast-paced research environments.
• Contributions to open-source projects, widely adopted research artifacts, or technologies with measurable effects in the broader AI community or industry.

Compensation and Benefits

• Base salary for Level 4: USD 192,000–304,750 per year.
• Base salary for Level 5: USD 224,000–356,500 per year.
• Salary is determined based on location, experience, and compensation for employees in similar positions.
• Eligible for equity and benefits.
• Applications will be accepted at least until August 4, 2026.
• NVIDIA is an equal opportunity employer committed to an inclusive work environment.