AI Engineer, Vision & Foundation Models, Optimus

Tesla Motors, Inc.
140,000 - 420,000 USD
paid holidays, flex time, 401(k)
United States, California, Palo Alto
Jan 08, 2026
What to Expect Tesla is solving robust embodied intelligence through humanoid robots. You will join the team building the vision and multimodal foundation models that allow Optimus to understand, interact, and navigate the world. Working at the intersection of large-scale deep learning and real-world robotics, you will own the full model lifecycle - from designing massive-scale data engines and auto labeling pipelines to architecting novel neural networks and deploying them to thousands of robots. What You'll Do Design and build scalable data pipelines,utilizingclassical computer vision and off-the-shelf models toauto labelmassive video datasets Develop and trainstate-of-the-artfoundational vision and multimodal networks, focusing on efficient tokenization, compression, and fusion of vision, language, audio, and tactile data Iterate on neural network architectures to improveperception, 3D understanding, and world modeling capabilities Optimizemodels for deployment on edge compute,utilizingquantization, pruning, and distillation to ensure real-time performance on the robot Collaborate with hardware andcontrolsengineers to close the loop betweenperceptionand actuation in the real world What You'll Bring Strong software engineering skills in Python withanability to write production-quality code Experience withPyTorchor another major deep learning framework (e.g., JAX, TensorFlow) Experience training large-scale models on distributed GPU clusters Strong mathematical fundamentals, including linear algebra, computational geometry, probability theory, and numerical optimization, are a plus Familiarity with classical computer vision (camera models, calibration, sensor fusion) is a plus Strong mathematical fundamentals, including linear algebra, computational geometry, probability theory, and numerical optimization, are a plus Familiarity with classical computer vision (camera models, calibration, sensor fusion) is a plus Domainexpertisein one or more of the following areas: Foundational Vision: Vision encoder pretraining, dense prediction, segmentation 3D & Geometry: Multiview geometry,NeRFs, 3D Gaussian Splatting, geometric vision models Multimodal Models: World models, video generation, vision-language-action models Human/Object Reconstruction: Mesh reconstruction, hand pose estimation, human-object interaction, object affordance Compensation and Benefits Benefits Along with competitive pay, as a full-time Tesla employee, you are eligible for the following benefits at day 1 of hire: Medical plans > plan options with $0 payroll deduction Family-building, fertility, adoption and surrogacy benefits Dental (including orthodontic coverage) and vision plans, both have options with a $0 paycheck contribution Company Paid (Health Savings Accounts) HSA Contribution when enrolled in the High-Deductible medical plan with HSA Healthcare and Dependent Care Flexible Spending Accounts (FSA) 401(k) with employer match, Employee Stock Purchase Plans, and other financial benefits Company paid Basic Life, AD&D Short-term and long-term disability insurance (90 day waiting period) Employee Assistance Program Sick and Vacation time (Flex time for salary positions, Accrued hours for Hourly positions), and Paid Holidays Back-up childcare and parenting support resources Voluntary benefits to include: critical illness, hospital indemnity, accident insurance, theft & legal services, and pet insurance Weight Loss and Tobacco Cessation Programs Tesla Babies program Commuter benefits Employee discounts and perks program Expected Compensation $140,000 - $420,000/annual salary + cash and stock awards + benefits Pay offered may vary depending on multiple individualized factors, including market location, job-related knowledge, skills, and experience. The total compensation package for this position may also include other elements dependent on the position offered. Details of participation in these benefit plans will be provided if an employee receives an offer of employment.