Research Scientist, World Models & Embodied AI

Meta Reality Labs Research (RL Research) brings together a world-class R&D team of researchers, developers, and engineers with the shared goal of developing AI and AR/VR technology across the spectrum. The Surreal Spatial AI group is seeking high-performing Research Scientists to build machine perception technology allowing AI agents, and systems to perceive, understand, and reason about the 3D world around them.The aim of this role is to develop advanced algorithms for active perception and intelligent interaction. You will investigate novel architectures combining World Models, data-driven control, and Machine Perception for real-time applications. Leveraging data from egocentric devices (Project Aria) and robotic platforms, your work will span the full stack—from high-fidelity 3D understanding to the predictive modeling of dynamics and actions—empowering agents to reason about and manipulate their surroundings.

Research Scientist, World Models & Embodied AI Responsibilities:

• Lead, collaborate, and execute on research that pushes forward the state of the art in 3D computer vision, embodied reasoning, and/or predictive world modeling
• Directly contribute to experiments, including designing experimental details, authoring reusable code, running evaluations, and organizing results
• Work with the team to design practical experiments and prototype systems related to dynamic scene modeling, long-horizon reasoning, and machine perception
• Contribute to publications and open-sourcing efforts
• Help identify long-term ambitious research goals as well as intermediate milestones

Minimum Qualifications:

• Currently has or is in the process of obtaining a PhD in the field of Computer Vision, Robotics, AI, Computer Science, a related field, or equivalent practical experience. Degree must be completed prior to joining Meta
• Experience communicating research for public audiences of peers
• Experience with real-world system building and data collection, including design, coding, and evaluation with modern ML methods
• Research experience involving 3D Computer Vision, Deep Learning, or Reinforcement Learning—specifically related to scene understanding, generative modeling, autonomous agents, or robotic control
• Experience in developing and debugging in C/C++, Python, or Rust
• Must obtain work authorization in the country of employment at the time of hire and maintain ongoing work authorization during employment

Preferred Qualifications:

• Hands-on experience implementing 3D computer vision algorithms and training/evaluating large-scale ML/AI models
• Familiarity with Reinforcement Learning (RL), VLAs, control theory, or learning-based planning
• Experience bridging the gap between perception and action (e.g., Active Vision, Embodied AI, Inverse RL, or RLHF)
• Experience with physics simulators or synthetic environments (e.g., Habitat, MuJoCo, Isaac Lab)
• Experience working in a Unix environment
• Demonstrated research and software engineering experience via an internship, work experience, coding competitions, or widely used contributions in open source repositories (e.g., GitHub)
• Proven track record of achieving significant results as demonstrated by grants, fellowships, patents, as well as publications at leading workshops, journals, or conferences such as CVPR, CoRL, ICRA, RSS, NeurIPS, ECCV, ICCV, IROS, or similar

About Meta:

Meta builds technologies that help people connect, find communities, and grow businesses. When Facebook launched in 2004, it changed the way people connect. Apps like Messenger, Instagram and WhatsApp further empowered billions around the world. Now, Meta is moving beyond 2D screens toward immersive experiences like augmented and virtual reality to help build the next evolution in social technology. People who choose to build their careers by building with us at Meta help shape a future that will take us beyond what digital connection makes possible today—beyond the constraints of screens, the limits of distance, and even the rules of physics.

Individual compensation is determined by skills, qualifications, experience, and location. Compensation details listed in this posting reflect the base hourly rate, monthly rate, or annual salary only, and do not include bonus, equity or sales incentives, if applicable. In addition to base compensation, Meta offers benefits. Learn more about benefits at Meta.