Who we are

Atoms is building the machines that power the next era of progress.

Over the last decade, software has transformed the digital world. But the physical world, where food is made, minerals are mined, goods are moved, and industries are run, remains far less intelligent, far less efficient, and far more constrained. We’re changing that.

Atoms builds Physical AI— real-world robots for the industries that move civilization forward, starting with food, mining, and transport. Our systems are designed to understand, predict, and control the real world with precision, turning complex physical operations into something more reliable, more scalable, and more productive.

This work requires more than robotics. It requires deep integration across hardware, software, AI, operations, manufacturing, and real estate. We don’t just build machines in a lab. We deploy them into real environments, operate them, learn from them, and improve them until they work at scale.

We are roboticists, engineers, operators, and builders. We believe the next great technology companies will not only transform information, but the physical systems that shape everyday life.

If you want to work on hard problems with real-world impact, join us.

About the role

As a Senior Staff Machine Learning Engineer focused on World Models, you will be one of the foundational technical leaders of Atoms' AI organization. You will help develop models that learn rich representations of the physical world from large scale multimodal data enabling machines to understand environments, model how those environments evolve, and provide the learned representations needed for downstream reasoning and action. This is an opportunity to help define a new generation of physical AI systems.

Rather than relying exclusively on traditional, independently engineered perception and autonomy components, we are exploring foundation model approaches capable of learning from diverse sensor inputs and large amounts of real world experience. You will work at the intersection of foundation models, multimodal learning, computer vision, robotics, and embodied AI to help determine what these systems should look like at Atoms.

This is a deeply technical individual contributor role with significant influence over our research direction and long term AI architecture.

What you'll do

Define and help build Atoms' technical architecture for world models and foundation models for physical AI.
Develop large scale models that learn representations of complex, dynamic physical environments.
Build models capable of learning from multimodal inputs including video, images, spatial information, sensor data, robot state, and other realworld signals.
Explore architectures that capture spatial, temporal, semantic, and physical relationships within realworld environments.
Develop approaches for learning how environments evolve over time and how actions influence future states.
Research and build self supervised, generative, predictive, and representation earning approaches for physical world intelligence.
Explore the application of modern foundation model architectures to robotics and autonomous systems.
Develop training strategies that take advantage of largescale realworld and simulated datasets.
Make architectural decisions spanning data, model design, pretraining, finetuning, evaluation, inference, and deployment.
Establish evaluation methodologies for measuring a model's ability to understand, represent, and predict the physical world.
Partner closely with engineers and researchers working across perception, action models, robotics, autonomy, simulation, and ML infrastructure.
Translate emerging research into systems capable of operating on real machines in real environments.
Provide technical leadership through research direction, architecture reviews, mentorship, experimentation, and handson engineering.
Help establish the technical bar for the growing AI Research organization and participate in identifying and assessing exceptional engineering and research talent.

What we're looking for

Deep expertise in machine learning with experience developing large-scale deep learning or foundation model systems.
Strong understanding of modern model architectures and representation learning.
Experience with one or more areas such as multimodal learning, video models, generative models, self-supervised learning, predictive models, spatial intelligence, or embodied AI.
Experience training models on large-scale datasets and understanding the relationship between data, architecture, compute, and model performance.
Strong understanding of the full ML lifecycle, including data strategy, model architecture, training, evaluation, optimization, and inference.
Experience translating research ideas into functioning machine learning systems.
Strong software engineering fundamentals and the ability to remain deeply handson in Python and modern ML frameworks.
Demonstrated ability to operate in ambiguous research spaces where the architecture and solution may not yet be known.
A track record of making consequential technical decisions and influencing research or engineering direction beyond an individual project.
Ability to communicate complex research and technical ideas clearly and collaborate across research, engineering, and robotics disciplines.

Why join us

At Atoms, you’ll work on one of the defining challenges of our time—bringing automation into the physical world to drive real, lasting impact. We exist to uncover valuable unknown truths and turn them into progress, which means constantly pushing beyond what’s known and building what doesn’t yet exist. The work is ambitious and often challenging, but it’s grounded in a shared sense of purpose and a team committed to seeing it through together. Our work only matters if it serves others, and we know that meaningful progress depends on the trust of the people we serve and the strength of our team—so we invest in both, creating an environment where you can do your best work and grow.

What else you need to know

This role is based in our San Francisco office. Atoms is a company driven by invention and continuous change - we are constantly reimagining our industries, building new products, and refining how we operate. We do our best work together. That’s why all of our office-based teams work onsite, five days a week.

The base salary range for this role is $273,000 - $321,000 per year.

Actual compensation will be determined on an individual basis and may vary depending on experience, skills, and qualifications.

Base salary is just one part of your total rewards package. You may also be eligible for equity awards.

Benefits Summary (USA Full-Time Exempt Employees):

Medical, Dental, Vision, Disability, and Life Insurance
Flexible Spending Account / Health Savings Account Options
401(k)
Equity
Sick Time, Unlimited Flexible Time Off, and Paid Holidays
Paid Parental Leave
Pre-Tax Commuter Benefit Plan
Team lunch in our SoMa office every Tuesday and Thursday

Benefits are subject to change at the company's discretion.
Atoms accepts applications on an ongoing basis.

Ready to join us as we serve those who serve others?

#LI-Onsite

About the company

Atoms builds machines and software that automate physical work in food, mining, and transport, and it makes specialized robots that each do one productive job rather than general-purpose humanoids. Its flagship business, CloudKitchens, builds delivery-only kitchens that restaurants rent to cook meals for delivery apps. At mines and quarries, its Pronto system adds sensors and driving software to existing haul trucks so they run on their own, while Otter software gathers restaurants' delivery-app orders in one place; Atoms earns money from kitchen rent, software subscriptions, and mining customers. The company was founded in 2016 and is based in Los Angeles, United States.

Company Size

1,001-5,000

Company Stage

Late Stage VC

Total Funding

$1.7B

Headquarters

Los Angeles, California

Founded

2016

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Simplify's Take

What believers are saying

Deep pockets fund the build-out: venture firm Andreessen Horowitz led a $1.7 billion investment in Atoms in July 2026.
Room to grow fast: Atoms listed 305 open roles in October 2026, including 64 in its self-driving vehicle unit.
Mining robots have an anchor customer: cement giant Heidelberg Materials is automating over 100 haul trucks with Atoms' Pronto system.

What critics are saying

No hybrid option: Atoms tells applicants that all its office-based teams work onsite, five days a week.
Sales jobs are unforgiving: CloudKitchens fires sellers who miss quotas within three months, the SF Standard reported in April 2026.
Big mines already trust a rival: Japanese equipment maker Komatsu commissioned its 1,000th self-driving giant haul truck in April 2026.

What makes Atoms unique

Its self-driving kit fits any brand: a Texas quarry runs Caterpillar and Komatsu trucks on cameras, without lidar or radar.
Uber owns a stake: Atoms is backed by the ride-hailing company that its CEO Travis Kalanick co-founded.
Despite the robotics pitch, food dominates: most of Atoms' 2,000-plus staff work in its kitchen and restaurant businesses.

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Benefits

Health Insurance
Dental Insurance
Vision Insurance
Disability Insurance
Life Insurance
Health Savings Account/Flexible Spending Account
Unlimited Paid Time Off
Paid Holidays
Paid Sick Leave
Parental Leave
Commuter Benefits
Company Equity

Company News

Sina Hong Kong

Oct 12th, 2026

Kalanick's Atoms raises $1.7B led by a16z to expand ProKitchens across Europe

Atoms, the robotics and industrial automation company founded by Uber co-founder Travis Kalanick, has raised $1.7 billion in a round led by Andreessen Horowitz (a16z). Uber, Bain Capital, Fifth Wall, and other institutional investors also took part. a16z co-founder Ben Horowitz joins the Atoms board. The money will speed up work across food, mining, and transport. The raise strengthens ProKitchens, part of the Atoms Food pillar alongside CloudKitchens. ProKitchens runs commercial kitchens in 10 cities across France, Spain, Italy, Portugal, Poland, and the Netherlands. It offers certified, ready-to-fit kitchen spaces on flexible contracts, which cuts the capital needed to open new locations.

Startup Fortune

Sep 15th, 2026

Travis Kalanick's Atoms hires Vikas Chandra from Meta's smart glasses team.

Travis Kalanick's Atoms hires Vikas Chandra from Meta's smart glasses team. Travis Kalanick's robotics company Atoms has hired Vikas Chandra, Meta's longtime smart glasses AI lead, as its new VP of artificial intelligence. Chandra will build the foundation models that help Atoms' autonomous systems perceive and operate in food logistics, mining, and transportation. Travis Kalanick's robotics company Atoms has hired Vikas Chandra, who spent nearly eight years running AI for Meta's smart glasses, to build the foundation models that let its machines understand the physical world. Atoms just made its most pointed hire yet. Travis Kalanick's industrial robotics company brought in Vikas Chandra as its new vice president of artificial intelligence. He's arriving from Meta's Reality Labs, where he spent close to eight years leading the AI work behind Ray-Ban Meta glasses. Chandra's job at Atoms is to build foundation models that help autonomous machines perceive and operate in warehouses, mines, and kitchens, not just headsets. The hire matters because of who Chandra is, not just where he's from. He joined Meta in 2018 as director of applied machine learning. He rose to senior director, then distinguished scientist, running the team that packed AI onto tiny, power-constrained chips. That's what let a pair of glasses recognize objects, translate speech, and answer questions without draining the battery in an hour. Before Meta, he led applied machine learning at Arm Research, where he helped pioneer TinyML, the field of squeezing neural networks onto devices too small and too power-starved for a data center GPU. He holds a PhD from Carnegie Mellon and has authored more than 200 research papers. That's a serious resume. That's exactly the skill set robots need. The bet behind the hire. Atoms itself only became public information this year, emerging from stealth in March. The company grew out of City Storage Systems, the ghost-kitchen operator Kalanick built after leaving Uber in 2017. It spent roughly eight years running quietly before surfacing under the Atoms name. It has since folded in CloudKitchens and acquired Pronto, the autonomous mining firm run by former Uber self-driving engineer Anthony Levandowski. The pitch, as Kalanick has described it, is a "wheelbase for robots": one shared stack of sensors and software, driven by AI. That stack is meant to move across industries - food logistics, mining, transportation - instead of being rebuilt from scratch for each one. Travis Kalanick's industrial AI company Atoms raised $1.7 billion in an a16z-led round announced July 22, with Uber itself joining as an investor and Ben Horowitz taking a board seat. The deal merges Kalanick's CloudKitchens, Pronto mining automation, and transport businesses into a single equity structure, built around a contrarian thesis that... - Travis Kalanick raises 1.7 billion Atoms - specialized industrial robots funding round Chandra isn't the only person leaving a comfortable perch at a tech giant for the harder, dirtier problem of physical AI. Atoms has also brought on Gautam Gupta, a former Uber finance executive, as chief financial officer, assembling a leadership bench that reads like an Uber alumni reunion. That's a deliberate strategy: recruit people who already know how to run an operationally brutal, capital-intensive business, then point that experience at robots instead of ride-hailing. The money backing the bet is real. Atoms closed a $1.7 billion round in July, led by Andreessen Horowitz, with Ben Horowitz taking a board seat. Bain Capital Ventures, Uber itself, Fifth Wall, and several other funds joined in. That places Atoms in the same conversation as Figure AI, which raised more than $1 billion last year at a valuation approaching $39 billion, and Physical Intelligence. Both are chasing the same wager: the next big AI platform can pick things up and haul ore out of the ground, far from any chat window. Beyond kitchens and mines. There's a fourth industry now in play, too. TechCrunch reported on September 6 that Atoms is exploring a move into robotaxis. That would put Chandra's perception work to the test in the highest-stakes environment a machine can operate in: a public road, full of people who did not agree to be part of the experiment. The difference is what Atoms does next. Figure and Physical Intelligence are building humanoid robots and general-purpose robot brains meant to handle almost any task. Atoms is betting narrower, and more useful in the near term: food delivery kitchens, mining trucks, freight. Chandra's job is to give those systems the kind of perception that made Ray-Ban Meta glasses work in the real world. It's built for machines that don't get to ask a human for help when the model gets confused. Chandra now reports into a company chasing three industries at once - food logistics, mining, transportation. The hiring pace suggests Kalanick is building out the team well before he's finished proving the product. Travis Kalanick's industrial robotics company Atoms raised $1.7 billion led by a16z on July 22, 2026, one of the largest robotics rounds of the year. The company, which operated in stealth for nearly eight years, spans autonomous mining, logistics, and food robotics across 110+ cities. The raise signals a major bet on physical AI infrastructure at... - Travis Kalanick Atoms robotics company funding - a16z physical AI robot startup Join the discussion. No replies yet. Start the discussion. Walter Schulze brings all the breaking news stories in the tech and startup world and to ensure that Startup Fortune offers a timely reporting on the trends happen in the industry. He now works on a part time basis for Startup Fortune specializing in covering tech and startup news and he also sheds light on investment opportunities and trends.

Business Insider

Sep 15th, 2026

Ex-Meta AI exec joins Travis Kalanick's $1.7B robotics startup Atoms

Travis Kalanick's robotics startup Atoms has hired Vikas Chandra, a longtime Meta AI executive, as vice president of AI. Chandra previously led AI work for Meta's smart glasses and will now build "foundation models for the physical world" — AI systems designed to help machines understand and act in real-world environments. Atoms, which is developing robots for industries including food, mining, and transportation, raised $1.7 billion earlier this summer in a round led by Andreessen Horowitz. The startup absorbed Kalanick's ghost-kitchen venture CloudKitchens as a subsidiary. Chandra's appointment follows other high-profile hires, including former Uber finance chief Gautam Gupta as CFO. The company also acquired autonomous-mining startup Pronto, run by former Uber self-driving engineer Anthony Levandowski.

PYMNTS

Sep 6th, 2026

Uber co-founder eyes return to ride-hailing with atoms startup.

Uber co-founder eyes return to ride-hailing with atoms startup. By PYMNTS | September 6, 2026 Uber's co-founder is reportedly considering returning to the ride-hailing space with his new venture Atoms. That's according to a report Sunday (Sept. 6) by the Financial Times (FT), which said Travis Kalanick is looking to develop robotaxi technology by reuniting with veterans of Uber's autonomous vehicles team in a bid to achieve a decade-old goal. Thanks to a recent $1.7 billion funding round, Atoms is about to embark on a hiring spree to bring on autonomous engineering talent, sources familiar with Kalanick's plans told FT. Atoms, which Kalanick has described as a "physical AI" company, has also held early talks with Uber about using its technology for robotaxis on its ride-hailing network, these sources said. They added that Uber has invested $100 million in Atoms. A tie-up would be Kalanick's first involvement in ride-hailing at Uber since he left its board in 2019, the report said. He was forced out as CEO in 2017 after an independent investigation into Uber's handling of sexual harassment complaints criticized the company and recommended Kalanick step back. Please add Mappedin to your preferred sources list so its news, data and interviews show up in your feed. Thanks! "A lot of the things that would have happened with Uber over time are things we're doing now," Kalanick said this month at an event hosted by venture firm Andreessen Horowitz in San Francisco, per FT. The report said it interviewed several current and former Atoms and Uber employees about Kalanick's return to the ride-hailing space after nearly a decade on the sidelines. Uber declined to comment for FT, while Atoms said it is "an industrial software company focused [on] industrial applications." "We have no plans to enter the saturated robotaxi market. Uber is a partner of Atoms and can use our technology for its ridesharing business if it is helpful," the company added. PYMNTS has contacted Uber for comment but has not yet gotten a reply. Sources added that Kalanick has tapped Waymo co-founder/former Uber self-driving chief Anthony Levandowski to oversee Atoms' autonomous vehicle work. In announcing the $1.7 billion funding round in July, Kalanick said that "industrial AI," which covers software, sensors, robotics and AI used to automate operations, would power the next Industrial Revolution. "Mining, construction, heavy transport, food production are just a few examples of atoms-heavy industries awaiting massive digital transformation," he said. "Multiple trillion-dollar industries rapidly transforming over the next decade powering an engine of prosperity unparalleled in human history."

Neptune Digital Assets

Aug 27th, 2026

Neptune expands AI and robotics exposure with strategic investment in Atoms.

Neptune expands AI and robotics exposure with strategic investment in Atoms. Vancouver, British Columbia - August 27, 2026 - Neptune Digital Assets Corp. (TSXV: NDA) (OTCQB: NPPTF) (FSE: 1NW) ("Neptune" or the "Company") is pleased to announce an investment in Atoms, an artificial intelligence and robotics company led by Travis Kalanick, co-founder and former CEO of Uber Technologies Inc. ("Uber"). Atoms is developing intelligent machines and automation systems designed to perform productive work across the physical economy, with applications spanning transportation, mining, food production and other large industrial markets. "AI is rapidly moving beyond software and into the physical world, creating opportunities to transform some of the world's largest industries," said Cale Moodie, President and CEO of Neptune. "Atoms combines an exceptional founder with the technical ambition and capital required to pursue these opportunities at scale. For Neptune shareholders, this investment provides exposure to a high-quality private technology company at an important stage in its development." Neptune's US$500,000 investment was made as part of Atoms' previously announced US$1.7 billion financing, led by Andreessen Horowitz. The investment was completed on an arm's-length basis. The investment builds on Neptune's strategy of complementing its core digital asset operations with selective investments in private technology companies. The Company continues to evaluate opportunities across artificial intelligence, computing and other emerging technologies. About Neptune Digital Assets Corp. Neptune Digital Assets Corp. (TSXV:NDA) (OTCQB:NPPTF) (FSE:1NW) is one of the first publicly traded blockchain companies in Canada and is at the forefront of the cryptocurrency and blockchain landscape. Neptune engages in operations across the digital asset ecosystem including, proof-of-stake mining, blockchain nodes, decentralized finance (DeFi) and other associated cutting-edge technology. Its unwavering commitment to innovation and strategic growth enables Neptune Digital Assets Corp to continually explore new opportunities and maximize value for its shareholders. For more information about Neptune Digital Assets Corp., please visit its website at www.neptunedigitalassets.com or follow Neptune Digital Assets Corp on X (@NeptuneDAC). ON BEHALF OF THE BOARD Cale Moodie, President and CEO Neptune Digital Assets Corp. 1-800-545-0941 www.neptunedigitalassets.com Neither TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release. Forward-Looking Statements This release contains certain "forward-looking statements" and certain "forward-looking information" as defined under applicable Canadian securities laws. Forward-looking statements and information can generally be identified by the use of forward-looking terminology such as "may", "will", "expect", "intend", "estimate", "anticipate", "believe", "continue", "plans", "proposes" or similar terminology. Forward-looking statements and information in this release include, among others: statements regarding the anticipated benefits of the investment in Atoms, including expected exposure for Neptune shareholders to a private technology company; statements regarding Atoms' business plans and prospects, including the development and commercialization of intelligent machines and automation systems and their application across transportation, mining, food production and other industrial markets; statements regarding the potential for artificial intelligence to be applied within large industrial sectors; statements regarding Neptune's strategy of complementing its digital asset operations with investments in private technology companies; and statements regarding Neptune's continued evaluation of additional investment opportunities in artificial intelligence, computing and other emerging technologies. Forward-looking statements and information are based on forecasts of future results, estimates of amounts not yet determinable and assumptions that, while believed by management to be reasonable, are inherently subject to significant business, economic and competitive uncertainties, and contingencies. Forward-looking statements and information are subject to various known and unknown risks and uncertainties, many of which are beyond the ability of the Company to control or predict, that may cause the Company's actual results, performance or achievements to be materially different from those expressed or implied thereby, and are developed based on assumptions about such risks, uncertainties and other factors set out herein, including but not limited to: the growth and profitability of the investment in Atoms; the inherent risks involved in the cryptocurrency and general securities markets; the Company may not be able to profitably liquidate its current digital currency inventory, or at all; a decline in digital currency prices may have a significant negative impact on the Company's operations; the volatility of digital currency prices; uncertainties relating to the availability and costs of financing needed in the future; the inherent uncertainty of production and cost estimates and the potential for unexpected costs and expenses, currency fluctuations; regulatory restrictions, liability, competition, loss of key employees and other related risks and uncertainties. The Company does not undertake any obligation to update forward-looking information except as required by applicable law. Such forward-looking information represents management's best judgment based on information currently available. No forward-looking statement can be guaranteed and actual future results may vary materially. Accordingly, readers are advised not to place undue reliance on forward-looking statements or information. Back to all news

Atoms

Staff Machine Learning Engineer - World Models

About the job