Senior/Staff Machine Learning Research Scientist, Generative Modeling for Planning

What the role actually is

Nuro is hiring a senior or staff research scientist for generative modeling in planning. The role targets the research layer behind autonomy decisions: modeling possible futures, improving planning quality, and validating learned methods for real vehicles.

The seniority suggests this person would influence research direction as well as implementation. It is a fit for researchers who want their work to shape deployed physical AI systems.

What you would work on

• Set research direction for generative modeling approaches to planning
• Build and evaluate learned planners for autonomous driving use cases
• Connect model behavior to safety, simulation, and production-readiness constraints
• Collaborate across autonomy, infrastructure, and evaluation teams

What they are asking for

• Senior research experience in ML, autonomy, robotics, or planning
• Depth in generative modeling or learning-based decision-making
• Ability to lead ambiguous research work toward practical outcomes
• Strong judgment about evaluating models in safety-critical physical systems

Why this one is worth a look

This is the more senior version of a theme showing up across autonomy teams: learned planning is becoming central, but the hard part is proving that it behaves well enough outside the benchmark.