AI Engineer, Model Distillation, Tesla AI
$124kFull-time
Tesla
What To Expect
At Tesla AI, we are solving real-world autonomy at a scale that does not exist anywhere else. We are building the brains for millions of robots and to achieve this, we train frontier-scale foundation models on the world’s richest, most diverse dataset of multimodal telemetry, vision, language, and robotic action. You will have access to unparalleled resources that set us apart from other companies in the AI industry. You will work with one of the richest real-world driving, robotics and human-interaction datasets available, spanning vision, language, action, and on-robot telemetry providing a unique environment to study how capability transfers from large teacher models into compact students that must run under strict latency, power, and reliability constraints. Tesla also offers one of the highest GPU resources per engineer in the industry, giving you the computational budget to train frontier-scale teachers, generate high-quality distillation corpora at volume, and iterate on student architectures far beyond typical research environments. These resources enable you to run distillation experiments across language, multimodal, and policy models at a fidelity and scale unmatched elsewhere, and to close the loop by deploying distilled models onto FSD / Optimus in the real world. What You'll Do Design and execute state-of-the-art distillation pipelines that transfer complex reasoning, vision-language understanding, and action policies from massive teacher models to ultra-efficient student models for FSD (Full Self-Driving), Optimus, and Digital Optimus Develop and iterate on advanced distillation methodologies, including logit-level, sequence-level, and trajectory-level distillation. You will pioneer novel recipes combining synthetic data generation, soft-label training, supervised fine-tuning (SFT), and Reinforcement Learning (RL)Conduct experiments to uncover the scaling behaviors of distillation: teacher size, student capacity, student architecture design, data mixture, compute allocation, and how each factor affects capability retention, latency, and on-robot performance Build and maintain infrastructure for efficient large-scale teacher inference, distillation data curation, and distributed student training, resolving compute and memory bottlenecks end-to-end Evaluate distilled models against teacher fidelity and product metrics like task success, robustness, and real-world behaviors and close gaps where students diverge from teachers Work closely with cross-functional teams to ship distilled models to production, meeting stringent performance, safety, and reliability standards Contribute tools and frameworks that make distillation reproducible, measurable, and reusable across Tesla AI model families What You'll Bring Deep, proven expertise in deep learning fundamentals, particularly in training, compressing, or distilling large-scale language, vision, or multimodal models Strong grasp of teacher–student interaction, synthetic data, and the tradeoffs between capability, latency, and compute In-depth knowledge of loss design (e.g., KL / soft-target objectives), and modern neural architectures (mixture of experts, hybrid attention, and beyond) Hands-on familiarity with post-training methods such as distillation, supervised fine-tuning, and policy optimization / RL Strong expertise in distributed computing and large-scale training or inference pipelines Proficiency in Python and a deep understanding of software engineering best practices Experience with deep learning frameworks such as PyTorch, TensorFlow, or JAX Demonstrated ability to work collaboratively in a cross-functional team environment Strong problem-solving skills and the ability to troubleshoot complex system-level issues across data, training, and deployment Benefits
Compensation and Benefits
Along with competitive pay, as a full-time Tesla employee, you are eligible for the following benefits at day 1 of hire:
Medical plans > plan options with $0 payroll deduction Family-building, fertility, adoption and surrogacy benefits Dental (including orthodontic coverage) and vision plans, both have options with a $0 paycheck contribution Company Paid (Health Savings Accounts) HSA Contribution when enrolled in the High-Deductible medical plan with HSA Healthcare and Dependent Care Flexible Spending Accounts (FSA) 401(k) with employer match, Employee Stock Purchase Plans, and other financial benefits Company paid Basic Life, AD&D Short-term and long-term disability insurance (90 day waiting period) Employee Assistance Program Sick and Vacation time (Flex time for salary positions, Accrued hours for Hourly positions), and Paid Holidays Back-up childcare and parenting support resources Voluntary benefits to include: critical illness, hospital indemnity, accident insurance, theft & legal services, and pet insurance Weight Loss and Tobacco Cessation Programs Tesla Babies program Commuter benefits Employee discounts and perks program Expected Compensation $124,000 - $558,000/annual salary + cash and stock awards + benefits Pay offered may vary depending on multiple individualized factors, including market location, job-related knowledge, skills, and experience. The total compensation package for this position may also include other elements dependent on the position offered. Details of participation in these benefit plans will be provided if an employee receives an offer of employment. , Tesla
At Tesla AI, we are solving real-world autonomy at a scale that does not exist anywhere else. We are building the brains for millions of robots and to achieve this, we train frontier-scale foundation models on the world’s richest, most diverse dataset of multimodal telemetry, vision, language, and robotic action. You will have access to unparalleled resources that set us apart from other companies in the AI industry. You will work with one of the richest real-world driving, robotics and human-interaction datasets available, spanning vision, language, action, and on-robot telemetry providing a unique environment to study how capability transfers from large teacher models into compact students that must run under strict latency, power, and reliability constraints. Tesla also offers one of the highest GPU resources per engineer in the industry, giving you the computational budget to train frontier-scale teachers, generate high-quality distillation corpora at volume, and iterate on student architectures far beyond typical research environments. These resources enable you to run distillation experiments across language, multimodal, and policy models at a fidelity and scale unmatched elsewhere, and to close the loop by deploying distilled models onto FSD / Optimus in the real world. What You'll Do Design and execute state-of-the-art distillation pipelines that transfer complex reasoning, vision-language understanding, and action policies from massive teacher models to ultra-efficient student models for FSD (Full Self-Driving), Optimus, and Digital Optimus Develop and iterate on advanced distillation methodologies, including logit-level, sequence-level, and trajectory-level distillation. You will pioneer novel recipes combining synthetic data generation, soft-label training, supervised fine-tuning (SFT), and Reinforcement Learning (RL)Conduct experiments to uncover the scaling behaviors of distillation: teacher size, student capacity, student architecture design, data mixture, compute allocation, and how each factor affects capability retention, latency, and on-robot performance Build and maintain infrastructure for efficient large-scale teacher inference, distillation data curation, and distributed student training, resolving compute and memory bottlenecks end-to-end Evaluate distilled models against teacher fidelity and product metrics like task success, robustness, and real-world behaviors and close gaps where students diverge from teachers Work closely with cross-functional teams to ship distilled models to production, meeting stringent performance, safety, and reliability standards Contribute tools and frameworks that make distillation reproducible, measurable, and reusable across Tesla AI model families What You'll Bring Deep, proven expertise in deep learning fundamentals, particularly in training, compressing, or distilling large-scale language, vision, or multimodal models Strong grasp of teacher–student interaction, synthetic data, and the tradeoffs between capability, latency, and compute In-depth knowledge of loss design (e.g., KL / soft-target objectives), and modern neural architectures (mixture of experts, hybrid attention, and beyond) Hands-on familiarity with post-training methods such as distillation, supervised fine-tuning, and policy optimization / RL Strong expertise in distributed computing and large-scale training or inference pipelines Proficiency in Python and a deep understanding of software engineering best practices Experience with deep learning frameworks such as PyTorch, TensorFlow, or JAX Demonstrated ability to work collaboratively in a cross-functional team environment Strong problem-solving skills and the ability to troubleshoot complex system-level issues across data, training, and deployment Benefits
Compensation and Benefits
Along with competitive pay, as a full-time Tesla employee, you are eligible for the following benefits at day 1 of hire:
Medical plans > plan options with $0 payroll deduction Family-building, fertility, adoption and surrogacy benefits Dental (including orthodontic coverage) and vision plans, both have options with a $0 paycheck contribution Company Paid (Health Savings Accounts) HSA Contribution when enrolled in the High-Deductible medical plan with HSA Healthcare and Dependent Care Flexible Spending Accounts (FSA) 401(k) with employer match, Employee Stock Purchase Plans, and other financial benefits Company paid Basic Life, AD&D Short-term and long-term disability insurance (90 day waiting period) Employee Assistance Program Sick and Vacation time (Flex time for salary positions, Accrued hours for Hourly positions), and Paid Holidays Back-up childcare and parenting support resources Voluntary benefits to include: critical illness, hospital indemnity, accident insurance, theft & legal services, and pet insurance Weight Loss and Tobacco Cessation Programs Tesla Babies program Commuter benefits Employee discounts and perks program Expected Compensation $124,000 - $558,000/annual salary + cash and stock awards + benefits Pay offered may vary depending on multiple individualized factors, including market location, job-related knowledge, skills, and experience. The total compensation package for this position may also include other elements dependent on the position offered. Details of participation in these benefit plans will be provided if an employee receives an offer of employment. , Tesla
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