AI Engineer, Policy, Optimus

Role Overview

Tesla is rapidly expanding Optimus manufacturing toward a fleet measured in the millions. At this scale, the robot data generated by the fleet enables new approaches to real-world learning, real-to-simulation-to-real transfer, and policy evaluation. In line with Tesla’s preference for straightforward yet scalable systems, this role focuses on building policy models for Optimus that can generalize across complex physical tasks.

As an AI Engineer on the Optimus Policy team, you will contribute across the full lifecycle of policy development, including data preparation, model training, evaluation, and deployment. The work spans a broad set of use cases such as loco-manipulation, dexterous manipulation, outdoor navigation, and movement over uneven terrain, with involvement from pre-training through reinforcement learning.

Responsibilities

• Build and scale training datasets using inputs from humans, robots, and simulation environments.
• Develop efficient, high-performing policies for a wide range of Optimus tasks.
• Define evaluation benchmarks that support rapid, iterative policy improvements.
• Run large-scale pre-training and reinforcement learning to produce robust and intelligent policies.
• Deploy trained policies onto Optimus hardware.

Requirements

• Practical experience training and deploying policies for robotics or autonomous systems.
• Strong command of PyTorch and distributed training at large scale.
• Demonstrated success delivering neural policies in production or real-world settings.
• Working knowledge of multimodal inputs such as vision, proprioception, and tactile sensing, along with modern machine learning techniques.
• Engineering approach suited to safety-critical systems with low-latency requirements.
• Strong interest in advancing embodied intelligence through reinforcement learning.

Compensation and Benefits

This full-time role includes Tesla’s employee benefits starting on day one of employment. Benefits include medical plans with options that require $0 payroll deduction, family-building, fertility, adoption, and surrogacy support, dental and vision coverage with $0 paycheck contribution options, company-funded HSA contributions when enrolled in the high-deductible medical plan, healthcare and dependent care FSAs, a 401(k) with employer match, employee stock purchase plans, company-paid basic life and AD&D coverage, short-term and long-term disability insurance with a 90-day waiting period, an employee assistance program, sick time, vacation time or flex time depending on pay type, paid holidays, back-up childcare and parenting resources, voluntary coverages such as critical illness, hospital indemnity, accident insurance, theft and legal services, and pet insurance, as well as weight loss and tobacco cessation programs, the Tesla Babies program, commuter benefits, and employee discounts and perks.

Expected Compensation

The stated annual base salary range is $124,000 to $558,000, with additional cash awards, stock awards, and benefits. Final pay may differ based on factors such as location, job-related knowledge, skills, and experience. The overall package may also include other elements depending on the offer.