Computer Vision Researcher (VLM)

At Niantic Spatial, we’re building the future of geospatial AI. Powered by a proprietary database of over 30 billion posed images and a groundbreaking third‑generation digital map, our mission is to develop spatial intelligence that helps both humans and machines better understand, navigate, and engage with the physical world. Our high‑fidelity mapping technology unlocks a new dimension of interaction—laying the foundation for AI to truly comprehend and operate within real‑world environments. Join us as we build a living model of the world that people and machines can talk to.

As a Computer Vision Researcher with experience in Large Language Models (LLMs), you will bridge the gap between 3D computer vision LLMs, creating a unified framework where machines can reason about their surroundings. By linking spatial geometry directly to language, you will enable our systems to perform context‑aware navigation and answer complex, open‑ended questions about the physical world.

Responsibilities

• Architect Semantic Grounding: Lead research into cross‑modal grounding that connects 3D spatial features with language embeddings, enabling the LGM to "understand" object relationships and environmental context.
• Scale "Understand" Capabilities: Develop and deploy algorithms for continuous semantics, allowing our 3D maps to evolve and improve their situational awareness as new ground‑level and aerial data is ingested.
• Agentic Frameworks: Build the "spatial brain" for Embodied AI, enabling robots, drones and other machines to move beyond simple navigation to mission‑level reasoning.
• Multimodal Benchmarking: Define the standards for measuring "spatial common sense" in LLMs, creating evaluations that test a model’s ability to interpret and operate within complex 3D scenes.
• Technical Mentorship: Serve as the technical anchor for the London R&D hub, resolving architectural disagreements and mentoring the next generation of researchers in the fusion of 3D CV and NLP.
• Collaborative Innovation: Partner with Product leads to ensure the "Understand" API delivers high business value for enterprise customers in robotics, logistics, and field operations.

Required Qualifications

• Education: PhD (or equivalent) in Computer Vision, Machine Learning, or Robotics with a focus on Multimodal/Semantic understanding.
• Years of Experience: 4+ years of experience in ML research, with a proven track record of shipping models that bridge 3D Vision and Language.
• Technical Depth: Expert knowledge of 3D Geometry (SfM, SLAM, VPS) and Transformer‑based architectures (VLMs).
• Research Impact: Multiple first‑author publications at top‑tier venues (CVPR, NeurIPS, ICLR) focusing on VLMs, scene understanding or semantic segmentation.
• Implementation Mastery: Ability to write production‑quality research code in PyTorch or JAX and manage large‑scale data pipelines.

Required In‑Office Days: 3 days per week

Plus If

• Experience with Gaussian Splatting or NeRFs for semantic scene representation.
• Background in robotics (ROS) or building agentic systems that interact with physical environments.
• Experience with "open‑set" recognition and Zero‑Shot learning.

Niantic Spatial is an equal opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to age, ancestry, citizenship, color, family or medical care leave, gender identity or expression, genetic information, immigration status, marital status, medical condition, national origin, physical or mental disability, political affiliation, protected veteran or military status, race, ethnicity, religion, sex (including pregnancy), sexual orientation, or any other characteristic protected by applicable local laws, regulations and ordinances. If you need assistance with reasonable accommodation during the application process, please contact your recruiter.