AI Research Scientist - Pico - Inter-Perception RD - HCI - Pico - San Jose

Responsibilities The PICO Interactive team is redefining how people connect with virtual worlds, using computer vision, deep learning, SLAM, 3D reconstruction, and multi-sensor fusion to enable bare-hand tracking, eye tracking, and XR accessory interaction in real time. The challenge is making these systems work reliably across every lighting condition, movement speed, and use case, on constrained wearable hardware. When tracking breaks, the whole interaction falls apart. You will build the perception stack that shapes what natural, intuitive XR interaction feels like for millions of users. We are looking for a Research Scientist to advance these capabilities through algorithms, data, and practical systems. - Drive research in one or more of the following areas, based on your expertise and project priorities: - Develop human motion and multimodal interaction understanding algorithms, including pose estimation, tracking, and intent recognition. - Advance hand-object interaction understanding, including contact, grasping, manipulation, and interaction sequences. - Build human demonstration data and annotation pipelines for embodied AI, using reconstruction, automated labeling, weak supervision, and synthetic data generation. - Explore joint optimization of hand tracking, SLAM, and scene geometry to improve spatial consistency and robustness. Translate research into practical capabilities: - Develop rigorous evaluation methods and scalable systems, including real-time XR inference and data pipelines for embodied AI. - Collaborate across hardware, engineering, data, product, and UX teams; contribute publications, patents, and reusable tools.

Qualifications Minimum Qualifications - PhD in Computer Science, Electrical Engineering, Robotics, or a related discipline. - Research depth in at least one relevant area: 3D vision, human motion, hand-object interaction, SLAM, embodied perception, or multimodal learning. - Strong foundations in machine learning and relevant geometry, optimization, or temporal modeling methods. - Proficiency in Python and modern deep learning frameworks such as PyTorch. - Demonstrated research or technical impact through publications, systems, datasets, or products, with strong experimental and collaboration skills. Preferred Qualifications - Experience with egocentric perception, human interaction understanding, multi-view geometry, or sensor fusion. - Experience with human demonstration datasets, automated annotation, synthetic data, or learning from human interactions. - Experience with NLP, LLM fine-tuning, or vision-language fusion; experience in intelligent interaction technologies, including gesture recognition, voice interaction, multimodal input, or AI-powered interfaces, is a plus. - Experience with lightweight model deployment on XR or embedded devices. - Publications at leading vision, ML, HCI, or robotics venues, or experience translating research into practical applications.

Job Information 【For Pay Transparency】Compensation Description (Annually) The base salary range for this position in the selected city is $162000 - $387600 annually.​ Compensation may vary outside of this range depending on a number of factors, including a candidate’s qualifications, skills, competencies and experience, and location. Base pay is one part of the Total Package that is provided to compensate and recognize employees for their work, and this role may be eligible for additional discretionary bonuses/incentives, and restricted stock units.​ Benefits may vary depending on the nature of employment and the country work location. Employees have day one access to medical, dental, and vision insurance, a 401(k) savings plan with company match, paid parental leave, short-term and long-term disability coverage, life insurance, wellbeing benefits, among others. Employees also receive 10 paid holidays per year, 10 paid sick days per year and 17 days of Paid Personal Time (prorated upon hire with increasing accruals by tenure).​ The Company reserves the right to modify or change these benefits programs at any time, with or without notice.​ For Los Angeles County (unincorporated) Candidates:​ Qualified applicants with arrest or conviction records will be considered for employment in accordance with all federal, state, and local laws including the Los Angeles County Fair Chance Ordinance for Employers and the California Fair Chance Act. Our company believes that criminal history may have a direct, adverse and negative relationship on the following job duties, potentially resulting in the withdrawal of the conditional offer of employment:​

1. Interacting and occasionally having unsupervised contact with internal/external clients and/or colleagues;​
2. Appropriately handling and managing confidential information including proprietary and trade secret information and access to information technology systems; and​
3. Exercising sound judgment.​

About Pico Founded in April 2015, Pico is a VR company committed to developing immersive and interactive VR experiences for people around the world. Pico also provides tailor-made solutions for our enterprise clients in the fields of education and healthcare.​

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