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Research Scientist - Embodied World Models

UMA· World Models
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Paris, Francefull-timePosted 3mo ago

About the role

Research Scientist on the World Models team focusing on building and deploying world models for humanoid robots, from data processing and model training to real-world evaluation and integration with the control stack.

Responsibilities

  • Design, run, and analyze original experiments on world models, planning, and reasoning, in simulation and real-world benchmarks.
  • Own the stack from data processing, model training to evaluation on real robots.
  • Push the frontier on self-supervised pretraining across video and action data for real-world manipulation and locomotion.
  • Take your research all the way onto hardware, integrating with the control stack, debugging closed-loop behaviour, and iterating against the messiness of the real world.
  • Document and present your work, and mentor the engineers who help bring it to life.

Qualifications

  • PhD (or equivalent industry research track) in robotics, representation learning, world models, self-supervised learning, RL/planning, or video modeling with a track record of papers and/or shipped systems.
  • Real depth in the relevant stack: large-scale training, efficient inference, fast experimentation.
  • The rare combination of research originality and engineering pragmatism with end to end ownership.
  • Experience with latent world models like JEPA is highly valued; ability to learn fast and bet well matters more than a specific paper on your CV.
  • Bonus: experience in early-stage startups or core teams of big companies building humanoids or highly-dexterous robots.
  • Inclusive mindset and openness to applicants who may not meet every criterion but can have outsized impact.

Skills

Required:World models and representation learningSelf-supervised learningRobotics hardware integration
Last updated Jul 23, 2026. Interested? Apply on the company site.

About UMA

UMA - Building intelligent robots that enhance quality of life for everyone

At UMA, we develop AI and robotics dedicated to shaping a new economic and societal era. We design general-purpose mobile and humanoid robots with human-level dexterity and a deep understanding of the physical world.

AIBuilding the futureDeep LearningGeneral-purpose robotsLeRobotRoboticsheadline-ai-europe-100-2026intelligent-hardware
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