{"id":847569,"url":"https://alion.io/job/terraai-seniorstaff-machine-learning-engineer","title":"Senior/Staff Machine Learning Engineer","company":{"id":689928,"name":"Terra AI","domain":"terraai.com","url":"https://alion.io/company/terraai","size_band":"51-200","is_staffing_agency":false,"employer_type":"direct","is_intermediary":false,"listed_via":null,"ats_vendor":"Ashby","truth_index":{"grade":"B","score":75,"open_postings":3,"ghost_share":0,"stale_share":1,"repost_share":0,"time_to_fill_p50_days":null,"computed_at":"2026-11-08T05:47:12Z"}},"role":"AI/ML","role_family":"AI/ML","seniority":"staff","employment_type":"full_time","work_mode":"remote","remote_scope":"stated_countries","remote_scope_basis":"posting_text","remote_working_hours":null,"hiring_geo_confidence":"structured","locations":[],"countries":[],"hiring_countries":["US"],"hiring_countries_total":1,"salary":{"min":255000,"max":275000,"currency":"USD","period":"year","gross":null,"usd_annual":275000},"salary_estimate":null,"experience_years_min":null,"visa_sponsorship":false,"relocation_package":false,"has_equity":false,"technologies":[{"name":"Diffusion Models","optional":false},{"name":"Machine Learning","optional":false},{"name":"PyTorch","optional":false},{"name":"Synthetic Data","optional":false}],"status":"live","first_seen_at":"2026-02-13T17:16:10Z","employer_posted_date":"2026-02-13","last_verified_at":"2026-11-08T20:16:45Z","board_verified":true,"closed_at":null,"days_open":268,"trust":{"level":"stale","repost_count":0,"flags":["stale"],"days_open":267},"description":"Terra AI is building a new category at the intersection of artificial intelligence, geoscience, and critical resource development.\nAs global demand for copper, lithium, nickel, rare earth elements, geothermal energy, and other strategic resources accelerates, the mining and subsurface industries face a growing challenge: traditional exploration methods remain slow, expensive, and highly uncertain. Terra AI was founded to help solve this problem by redefining how critical resources are discovered, evaluated, and developed.\nBy combining advanced machine learning, probabilistic modeling, and deep geoscience expertise, Terra AI helps exploration and mining companies make faster, more informed subsurface decisions with greater confidence and capital efficiency. The company’s platform integrates geological, geophysical, and drilling data into intelligent systems designed to improve targeting accuracy, accelerate discovery timelines, and reduce exploration risk.\nBacked by Khosla Ventures, BHP, and Rio Tinto, Terra AI works with industry leaders to bring a more informed, data-driven approach to critical resource development.\nTerra AI’s mission is to define the new global standard for data-driven critical resource development - breaking the cost and time curve required to support electrification, energy security, and the global energy transition.\nThe company operates with a strong partnership mentality, combining technical rigor, candid communication, continual learning, and environmental stewardship to help modern exploration teams solve some of the world’s most important resource challenges.\nWho you are\nYou’re a deep learning engineer or scientist who loves building new models, not just applying existing ones. You’re comfortable working from first principles, experimenting with architectures, training large models, and learning from results that don’t always behave as expected.\nYou bring deep PyTorch expertise, strong software engineering habits, and the judgment to turn research ideas into reliable experiments. You care about the quality of training data as much as the sophistication of the model, and you enjoy collaborating with people whose expertise extends beyond machine learning.\nYou’re excited by the opportunity to apply generative AI to a genuinely difficult physical-world problem: understanding the geology we cannot directly see. Prior geoscience experience is welcome, but curiosity and a willingness to learn matter just as much.\nWhat you’ll do\nTerra AI is developing generative models that produce three-dimensional geological representations conditioned on geophysical surveys, borehole measurements, and other physical observations. Like image-generation systems that produce different plausible images from a prompt, our models aim to produce plausible views of the subsurface consistent with the evidence available.\nThe goal is not to pretend we know exactly what lies underground. It is to capture both what we know and what remains uncertain, giving exploration teams a stronger foundation for deciding where and how to investigate critical resources.\nIn this role, you’ll lead the development of these models from architecture and training through evaluation and adaptation to real projects. You’ll work closely with other AI researchers, engineers, geoscientists, and project teams to connect novel modeling approaches with consequential real-world decisions.\nCore responsibilities\nDesign, implement, train, evaluate, and iterate on diffusion models that generate 3D geological models.\n\nDevelop approaches to condition model outputs on geophysical surveys, borehole measurements, and other physical observations.\n\nShape synthetic-data generation and data-curation approaches to improve model quality, robustness, and generalization.\n\nEstablish rigorous experiments, evaluation methods, and reproducible training workflows to understand model performance and limitations.\n\nAdapt generative modeling approaches to real-world projects in close collaboration with geoscience and delivery teams.\n\nBuild maintainable, well-tested model code and contribute to the engineering foundations needed for continued experimentation and deployment.\n\nQualifications\nRequired\nExtensive hands-on PyTorch experience, including custom modules, training optimization, and debugging complex or large-scale models.\n\nDemonstrated experience designing, implementing, and training substantial deep learning architectures from scratch.\n\nStrong data-curation skills, including creating, cleaning, validating, and maintaining datasets for machine learning.\n\nSolid software engineering and system-design fundamentals, including version control, testing, code optimization, scalability, and maintainability.\n\nNice to have\nExperience with generative architectures, especially diffusion models and posterior sampling methods.\n\nExperience developing and training transformer architectures, particularly for 3D or other structured data.\n\nExperience scaling model training across multi-GPU systems or large GPU clusters, including distributed training optimization.\n\nExperience managing and optimizing cloud infrastructure for machine learning workloads.\n\nWe recognize that exceptional candidates come from a range of research, engineering, and scientific backgrounds. If this work excites you and your experience aligns with the spirit of the role, we encourage you to apply even if you do not meet every preferred qualification.\n\nCompensation & Benefits\nThe annual base salary range for this position is $255,000-275,000. Actual compensation will depend on experience, qualifications, skills, location, and other job-related factors. This role is eligible for equity and Terra AI’s benefits package, including medical, dental, vision, life insurance, FSA, and a 401(k) with company match. Any additional incentive compensation will be communicated separately. Applications may be submitted through the job posting; the application closing date will be provided when the role is published.\nTerra AI is an equal opportunity employer. We make employment decisions based on qualifications, merit, and business needs, without regard to race, color, ancestry, national origin, religion, creed, age, disability, medical condition, genetic information, sex, gender, pregnancy or related medical conditions, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, marital status, reproductive health decision-making, military or veteran status, or any other characteristic protected by applicable federal, state, or local law.\nWe’re committed to building a workplace where people with different backgrounds, experiences, and perspectives can do their best work. Terra AI also provides reasonable accommodations to qualified applicants and employees with disabilities. 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