Senior Machine Learning Engineer - Scene Understanding

The Perception team at Zoox creates the "eyes and ears" of our self-driving robots. Navigating safely and efficiently in complex environments requires detecting, classifying, tracking, and understanding various attributes of surrounding objects—all in real-time and with exceptional accuracy.

As an engineer in the Scene Understanding team, you will develop advanced Vision-Language-Action (VLA) models that perceive our vehicle's surroundings to identify hazards and make driving suggestions. You will utilize VLA models for detecting rare events and ensuring safe driving in these situations. You'll work with state-of-the-art machine learning models that operate in real-time on our robotaxi platform with minimal latency. Collaborating with world-class engineers and researchers across sensors, planning, and other teams, you'll have access to premium sensor data and cutting-edge infrastructure to validate your algorithms in real-world conditions. In this role, you will...

• Design and train Vision-Language-Action (VLA) solutions for robotaxis

• Lead end-to-end data strategy, including mining, auto-labeling, and dataset construction to power our ML flywheel

• Lead the full post-training stack for VLMs and VLAs, including Continual Pre-training (CPT) on domain-specific driving data, Supervised Fine-Tuning (SFT) for instruction following.

• Utilize our large-scale data pipelines and ML infrastructure to research, prototype, and deploy solutions that improve driving behavior

• Partner with cross-functional teams to integrate perception signals

Qualifications

• MS or PhD in Computer Science or related field

• Background in deep learning solutions for VLM and VLA models

• Track record in post-training large-scale models, CPT, SFT, RL

• Hands-on experience with production ML pipelines, including dataset creation, training frameworks, and metrics

• Expertise in Python libraries (PyTorch, NumPy, Pandas, VLLM)

Bonus Qualifications

• Deep knowledge of cutting-edge computer vision techniques

• Publications in top-tier conferences (CVPR, ICCV, RSS, ICRA)

• Experience with integrating large language models to various tasks.

$189,000 - $290,000 a year

Base Salary Range

There are three major components to compensation for this position: salary, Amazon Restricted Stock Units (RSUs), and Zoox Stock Appreciation Rights. A sign-on bonus may be offered as part of the compensation package. The listed range applies only to the base salary. Compensation will vary based on geographic location and level. Leveling, as well as positioning within a level, is determined by a range of factors, including, but not limited to, a candidate's relevant years of experience, domain knowledge, and interview performance. The salary range listed in this posting is representative of the range of levels Zoox is considering for this position.

Zoox also offers a comprehensive package of benefits, including paid time off (e.g. sick leave, vacation, bereavement), unpaid time off, Zoox Stock Appreciation Rights, Amazon RSUs, health insurance, long-term care insurance, long-term and short-term disability insurance, and life insurance.

About Zoox

Zoox is developing the first ground-up, fully autonomous vehicle fleet and the supporting ecosystem required to bring this technology to market. Sitting at the intersection of robotics, machine learning, and design, Zoox aims to provide the next generation of mobility-as-a-service in urban environments. We’re looking for top talent that shares our passion and wants to be part of a fast-moving and highly execution-oriented team.

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Accommodations

If you need an accommodation to participate in the application or interview process please reach out to accommodations@zoox.com or your assigned recruiter.

A Final Note:

You do not need to match every listed expectation to apply for this position. Here at Zoox, we know that diverse perspectives foster the innovation we need to be successful, and we are committed to building a team that encompasses a variety of backgrounds, experiences, and skills.