Atoms
Staff Machine Learning Engineer
- Location
- San Francisco, CA
- Last checked
- Oct 26, 2026
About this role
Who we are
Atoms is building the machines that power the next era of progress.
Over the last decade, software has transformed the digital world. But the physical world, where food is made, minerals are mined, goods are moved, and industries are run, remains far less intelligent, far less efficient, and far more constrained. We’re changing that.
Atoms builds Physical AI— real-world robots for the industries that move civilization forward, starting with food, mining, and transport. Our systems are designed to understand, predict, and control the real world with precision, turning complex physical operations into something more reliable, more scalable, and more productive.
This work requires more than robotics. It requires deep integration across hardware, software, AI, operations, manufacturing, and real estate. We don’t just build machines in a lab. We deploy them into real environments, operate them, learn from them, and improve them until they work at scale.
We are roboticists, engineers, operators, and builders. We believe the next great technology companies will not only transform information, but the physical systems that shape everyday life.
If you want to work on hard problems with real-world impact, join us.
AI Researcher (World Models & VLA)
What you’ll do
A visionary Machine Learning Engineer to join our founding team who will help bridge the gap between high-level AI research and real-world physical actuation for our next-generation autonomous transport platforms. We are actively hiring across three core specialized subcategories: AI Research, Post-Training Optimization, and Data Engineering.
- Research and develop cutting edge RL and distillation techniques for trajectory planning
- Integrate emerging research from the broader AI community, identifying and prototyping the most promising solutions
- Design and deploy end-to-end multimodal models that translate real-time visual perception and high-level behavioral goals into physical vehicle actuation
- Develop interactive world models from raw multi-sensor logs, allowing the team to re-simulate events and query what a vehicle would see if it altered its trajectory