{"id":800351,"url":"https://alion.io/job/xpengmotors-staff-machine-learning-engineer-foundation-model","title":"Staff Machine Learning Engineer - Foundation Model","company":{"id":686006,"name":"XPeng","domain":"xpengmotors.com","url":"https://alion.io/company/xpengmotors","size_band":"5000+","is_staffing_agency":false,"employer_type":"direct","is_intermediary":false,"listed_via":null,"ats_vendor":"Greenhouse","truth_index":{"grade":"B","score":83,"open_postings":6,"ghost_share":0,"stale_share":0.5,"repost_share":0,"time_to_fill_p50_days":74,"computed_at":"2026-11-04T06:34:25Z"}},"role":"AI/ML","role_family":"AI/ML","seniority":"staff","employment_type":"full_time","work_mode":"on_site","remote_scope":null,"remote_scope_basis":null,"remote_working_hours":null,"hiring_geo_confidence":"structured","locations":["Santa Clara, United States","Mountain View, United States"],"countries":["US"],"hiring_countries":[],"hiring_countries_total":0,"salary":{"min":215280,"max":364320,"currency":"USD","period":"year","gross":null,"usd_annual":364320},"salary_estimate":null,"experience_years_min":3,"visa_sponsorship":false,"relocation_package":false,"has_equity":false,"technologies":[{"name":"Fine-tuning","optional":false},{"name":"FSDP","optional":false},{"name":"Interpretability","optional":false},{"name":"Knowledge Distillation","optional":false},{"name":"Machine Learning","optional":false},{"name":"Model Distillation","optional":false},{"name":"Multimodal AI","optional":false},{"name":"PyTorch","optional":false},{"name":"Quantization","optional":false},{"name":"Reinforcement Learning","optional":false},{"name":"Reinforcement Learning","optional":false},{"name":"Self-Supervised Learning","optional":false},{"name":"Vision-Language-Action","optional":false},{"name":"DPO","optional":true},{"name":"GRPO","optional":true},{"name":"LLM","optional":true},{"name":"RLHF","optional":true},{"name":"VLM","optional":true}],"status":"live","first_seen_at":"2025-01-15T01:10:35Z","employer_posted_date":"2026-06-01","last_verified_at":"2026-11-04T15:59:02Z","board_verified":true,"closed_at":null,"days_open":658,"trust":{"level":"stale","repost_count":0,"flags":["stale"],"days_open":658},"description":"XPENG is a leading smart technology company at the forefront of innovation, integrating advanced AI and autonomous driving technologies into its vehicles, including electric vehicles (EVs), electric vertical take-off and landing (eVTOL) aircraft, and robotics. With a strong focus on intelligent mobility, XPENG is dedicated to reshaping the future of transportation through cutting-edge R&D in AI, machine learning, and smart connectivity.\nWe are looking for a full-time Machine Learning Engineer / Research Scientist to drive the modeling and algorithmic development of XPENG’s next-generation Vision-Language-Action (VLA) Foundation Model - the core brain that powers our end-to-end autonomous driving systems.\nYou will work closely with world-class researchers, perception and planning engineers, and infrastructure experts to design, train, and deploy large-scale multi-modal models that unify vision, language, and control. Your work will directly shape the intelligence that enables XPENG’s future L3/L4 autonomous driving products.\nKey Responsibilities\nDesign and implement large-scale multi-modal architectures (e.g., vision-language-action transformers) for end-to-end autonomous driving.\n\nDevelop pretraining and fine-tuning strategies leveraging massive labeled and unlabeled fleet data (images, video, LiDAR, CAN bus, maps, human driving behaviors, etc.).\n\nResearch and integrate cross-modal alignment (e.g., visual grounding, temporal reasoning, policy distillation, imitation and reinforcement learning) to improve model interpretability and action quality.\n\nCollaborate with infrastructure engineers to scale training across thousands of GPUs using distributed training frameworks (FSDP, DDP, etc.).\n\nConduct systematic ablation, evaluation, and visualization of model behavior across perception, reasoning, and planning tasks.\n\nContribute to model deployment optimization, including quantization, export, and latency-accuracy trade-offs for onboard execution.\n\nMinimum Qualifications\nMaster’s degree or higher in Computer Science, Electrical/Computer Engineering, or related field, with 3+ years of experience in deep learning research or productization.\n\nStrong proficiency in PyTorch and modern transformer-based model design.\n\nExperience in large-scale pretraining or multi-modal modeling (vision, language, or planning).\n\nDeep understanding of representation learning, temporal modeling, and self-supervised or reinforcement learning techniques.\n\nFamiliarity with distributed training (DDP, FSDP) and large-batch optimization.\n\nPreferred Qualifications\nPhD in CS/CE/EE or related field, with 1+ years of relevant industry experience.\n\nPublication record in top-tier AI conferences (CVPR, ICCV, NeurIPS, ICLR, ICML, ECCV).\n\nPrior experience building foundation or end-to-end driving models, or LLM /VLM architectures (e.g., ViT, Flamingo, BEVFormer, RT-2, or GRPO-style policies).\n\nFamiliarity with RLHF/DPO/GRPO, trajectory prediction, or policy learning for control tasks.\n\nProven ability to collaborate cross-functionally with infra, perception, and planning teams to deliver production-ready models.\n\nWhat do we provide:\nA collaborative, research-driven environment with access to massive real-world data and industry-scale compute.\n\nAn opportunity to work with top-tier researchers and engineers advancing the frontier of foundation models for autonomous driving.\n\nDirect impact on the next generation of intelligent mobility systems.\nOpportunity to make significant impact on the transportation revolution by the means of advancing autonomous driving.\n\nCompetitive compensation package.\n\nSnacks, lunches, dinners, and fun activities.\n\nThe base salary range for this full-time position is $215,280-$364,320, in addition to bonus, equity and benefits. Our salary ranges are determined by role, level, and location. The range displayed on each job posting reflects the minimum and maximum target for new hire salaries for the position across all US locations. Within the range, individual pay is determined by work location and additional factors, including job-related skills, experience, and relevant education or training.\nWe are an Equal Opportunity Employer. It is our policy to provide equal employment opportunities to all qualified persons without regard to race, age, color, sex, sexual orientation, religion, national origin, disability, veteran status or marital status or any other prescribed category set forth in federal or state regulations.","description_format":"text","description_chars":4479,"description_truncated":false,"requirements":{"experience_years_min":3,"management_years_min":null,"team_size_min":null,"manages_managers":false,"education":{"level":"master","optional":false},"security_clearance":false,"languages":[]},"benefits":["Equity"],"hiring_locations":[],"hiring_excludes":[],"relocation_offered":false,"industries":["Autonomous Driving","Automotive Manufacturing"],"lifecycle":[{"event":"open","at":"2026-09-12T07:26:25Z"}],"visa":[],"liveness":{"score":11,"band":"cold","label":"Long shot","p_open":1,"p_active":0.382,"p_room":0.28,"age_days":658,"expected_fill_days":74,"reasons":["conf:0","win:tail","crowd:"],"computed_at":"2026-11-04T06:34:25Z"},"pay":{"stated_usd_annual":364320,"is_top_pay":true},"html_url":"https://alion.io/job/xpengmotors-staff-machine-learning-engineer-foundation-model","json_url":"https://alion.io/job/xpengmotors-staff-machine-learning-engineer-foundation-model.json","meta":{"generated_at":"2026-11-04T17:14:49Z","cache_seconds":300,"methodology":"https://alion.io/methodology","terms":"https://alion.io/terms","contact":"https://alion.io/contact","api":"https://alion.io/developers","about":"Alion is a live layer of people, companies and AI agents: who they are, whether they are real and active right now, what they do and how to work with them, readable by people and by agents and paid per call.","catalog":"https://alion.io/catalog.json","usage":{"tier":"crawler_verified","counted_by":"address","units_charged":1,"used_today":26393,"day_limit":null,"remaining_today":null,"minute_limit":300,"resets_at":"2026-11-05T00:00:00Z"}},"offers":[{"id":"company.slices","title":"One company in depth, by slice","status":"live","price":{"credits":0.02,"usd":0.002,"plus_per_slice":{"credits":0.05,"usd":0.005}},"unit":"per company, plus each slice with data","note":"the employer in depth","call":{"mcp_tool":"get_company","arguments":{"id":686006},"rest":"https://alion.io/mcp/rest/get_company?id=686006"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=company.slices&for=job%2Fxpengmotors-staff-machine-learning-engineer-foundation-model"},{"id":"market.stats","title":"A market slice: pay, demand and time to fill","status":"live","price":{"credits":1,"usd":0.1},"unit":"per slice","note":"pay, demand and time to fill for this role and place","call":{"mcp_tool":"market_stats"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=market.stats&for=job%2Fxpengmotors-staff-machine-learning-engineer-foundation-model"},{"id":"job.search","title":"Open jobs by role, technology, place, pay and visa","status":"live","price":{"credits":0.02,"usd":0.002},"unit":"per posting in a list","note":"similar open postings","call":{"mcp_tool":"search_jobs"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=job.search&for=job%2Fxpengmotors-staff-machine-learning-engineer-foundation-model"},{"id":"company.verify","title":"Is this company real and active right now","status":"pilot","price":null,"unit":"per company","request":{"url":"https://alion.io/catalog/request","method":"POST","body":"{\"offer\": \"company.verify\", \"for\": \"job/xpengmotors-staff-machine-learning-engineer-foundation-model\", \"note\": \"what you need it for\"}"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=company.verify&for=job%2Fxpengmotors-staff-machine-learning-engineer-foundation-model"}],"agent":{"mcp":"https://alion.io/mcp/jobs","mcp_open":"https://alion.io/mcp/open","next":[{"tool":"get_job","arguments":{"id":800351}},{"tool":"search_jobs","arguments":{"company":"xpengmotors.com","detail":"compact"}},{"tool":"match_people","arguments":{"job_id":800351},"note":"people open to offers who fit this vacancy"}],"note":"The same data through MCP tools: https://alion.io/mcp/open needs no sign-in (compact searches, postings, people); https://alion.io/mcp with an Alion account has everything. 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