World Model Research Scientist - Physical AI

Responsibilities

• Design and train generative world models that synthesize realistic multi-camera video and LiDAR conditioned on ego trajectories, 3D scene context, and text
• Research and implement conditional diffusion architectures for driving, including spatiotemporal attention, latent space design, and action-conditioned generation
• Develop techniques for multi-view geometric consistency using neural rendering, cross-view attention, and 3D-aware generative approaches
• Build methods for joint multimodal generation maintaining cross-sensor consistency between camera, LiDAR, and radar outputs
• Design evaluation frameworks measuring world model quality beyond pixel-level metrics, including scenario fidelity and autoregressive stability
• Scale training pipelines to learn from thousands of hours of real-world driving data across multiple sensor modalities

Requirements

• PhD in Computer Science, AI, Robotics, or a related field with focus on generative modeling, neural rendering, or video synthesis
• Strong publication record in diffusion models, video generation, neural radiance fields, 3D-aware generative models, or world models
• Experience with neural rendering, view synthesis, and multi-view geometric consistency
• Proficiency working with multimodal sensor data (camera, LiDAR, radar) and familiarity with 3D representations such as BEV grids, voxel fields, or tri-planes
• Strong implementation skills in Python and PyTorch, with experience training large generative models at scale using distributed training
• Passion for building AI that understands and predicts the physical world to enable safe autonomous driving

Benefits

• Competitive compensation package including equity and annual bonuses
• Medical, Dental, and Vision plans through Kaiser Permanente, Cigna, and MetLife
• Flexible PTO, 10 paid holidays, and generous parental leave policies
• Office perks including dog-friendly environment, free catered lunch, fully stocked kitchen, and free EV charging
• Wellbeing benefits including Headspace, Calm, One Medical, Gympass, Spring Health, and Rula
• Fidelity 401(k), commuter benefits, FSA, Dependent Care FSA, and HSA

About the Company

Kodiak Robotics builds an AI-powered technology stack for commercial trucking and the public sector, delivering freight daily using autonomous technology. In 2024, Kodiak became the first known company to publicly announce delivering a driverless semi-truck to a customer. The company is also leveraging its commercial self-driving software to develop autonomous capabilities for the U.S. Department of Defense.