Full-Time

Senior/Staff Machine Learning Researcher

Updated on 9/10/2026

Terra AI

Terra AI

11-50 employees

AI platform for natural resource development

No salary listed

Remote in USA + 1 more

More locations: Redwood City, CA, USA

Remote

Category
AI & Machine Learning (1)
Required Skills
Software Testing
Neural Networks
PyTorch
Machine Learning
Version Control
3D Modeling

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Requirements
  • Extensive experience with PyTorch, including writing custom modules, optimizing training, and debugging large-scale models.
  • Proven ability to design, implement, and train complex deep learning architectures from scratch.
  • Hands-on experience creating, cleaning, and maintaining high-quality datasets for machine learning applications.
  • Proficiency in software development best practices, including version control, testing, and code optimization.
  • Familiarity with designing scalable and maintainable systems.
Responsibilities
  • Design, train, test, and iterate on diffusion models for three-dimensional geological models.
  • Design, train, test, and iterate on conditioning generation on geophysical data and other observations.
  • Inform the generation of synthetic data to improve model performance.
  • Adapt diffusion modeling approaches to specific real-world projects in collaboration with project teams.
Desired Qualifications
  • Familiarity with generative architectures, particularly diffusion models, with an emphasis on posterior sampling methods.
  • Experience building and training transformer architectures, especially for three-dimensional data.
  • Expertise in parallelizing models across multiple GPUs and optimizing distributed training pipelines.
  • Experience setting up, managing, and optimizing cloud environments for machine learning workloads, including provisioning resources and managing costs.

Terra AI uses AI systems to support decision-making in challenging natural resource projects. It provides an AI platform that models and optimizes complex mineral exploration and other resource development projects, helping users design faster, reduce capital costs, and improve energy and resource output. The core product is AI-driven decision-support tools that analyze subsurface data and project scenarios to mitigate subsurface risk, improve operational performance, and accelerate the energy transition. Terra AI differentiates itself by focusing specifically on critical resource development and subsurface risk in energy and mineral exploration, offering integrated AI models and optimization to guide design and execution from start to finish. The company’s goal is to help clients plan, design, and operate natural resource projects more efficiently and cost-effectively, advancing the energy transition and maximizing resource yields.

Company Size

11-50

Company Stage

Series A

Total Funding

$23.3M

Headquarters

Palo Alto, California

Founded

2023

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Simplify Jobs

Simplify's Take

What believers are saying

  • June 3, 2026 raised $20 million, extending runway for hiring and enterprise deployments.
  • Commercial momentum spans copper, gold, rare earths, reservoirs, and OMV carbon storage.
  • Management claims 50-60% fewer drilling meters and 4-5 year project acceleration.

What critics are saying

  • Junior miners prioritize cheap tools; Terra AI's enterprise pricing faces slow adoption in 2026.
  • BHP and Rio Tinto partnerships make Terra AI dependent on a few anchor customers.
  • Foundation-model rivals can copy workflows fast, compressing differentiation before 2027 procurement cycles.

What makes Terra AI unique

  • June 2026 Series A from Khosla and BHP validates Terra AI with industry giants.
  • Terra AI models subsurface uncertainty in minutes across mining, geothermal, and carbon storage.
  • Patented platform fuses geophysics, geochemistry, and drilling data into probabilistic 3D models.

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Benefits

Remote Work Options

Flexible Work Hours

Growth & Insights and Company News

Headcount

6 month growth

8%

1 year growth

0%

2 year growth

-16%
PR Newswire
Jun 3rd, 2026
Terra AI raises $20M to accelerate mineral exploration with AI-powered subsurface modelling

Terra AI, an artificial intelligence platform for mineral and energy exploration, has raised $20 million in a Series A round led by Khosla Ventures, with strategic investment from BHP Ventures. The company's patented technology integrates exploration data to generate millions of geological models, helping teams evaluate subsurface scenarios and optimise drilling approaches. Terra AI's platform produces 3D models that map assets and uncertainty within minutes, addressing the lengthy timeline for new discoveries, which typically take 17 years to reach production. The funding will accelerate deployment of Terra AI's generative geological modelling platform across mining, enhanced geothermal and carbon storage projects. The company has built momentum with commercial customers across copper, gold, rare earth elements and reservoir projects. Its technology is also being applied to carbon storage sites for identifying safe, permanent storage locations.

TechNode Global
Jun 3rd, 2026
Terra AI raises $20M to accelerate mineral and reservoir exploration to meet global critical mineral and energy demands.

Terra AI raises $20M to accelerate mineral and reservoir exploration to meet global critical mineral and energy demands. June 3, 2026 The fundraiser included a Series A investment led by Khosla Ventures and strategic investment from BHP Ventures PALO ALTO, Calif., June 3, 2026 /PRNewswire/ - Terra AI, the artificial intelligence platform helping solve subsurface uncertainty for mineral and energy development, today announced it raised $20 million Series A led by Khosla Ventures and strategic investment from BHP Ventures. Terra AI's patented technology integrates nearly every type of exploration data to generate millions of geological models, enabling teams to evaluate a comprehensive range of potential subsurface scenarios. This allows project teams to identify the best drilling and geophysical approaches to reduce key uncertainty and rigorously assess project economics earlier than ever before. By going beyond geological visualization and delivering risk-quantified decision insights, Terra AI helps explorers on virtually every important decision across their portfolio from determining which assets to acquire in a portfolio to accelerating and de-risking resource development efforts. The outcome: resource pipelines are developed faster and more efficiently to help the world meet its resource needs. "Explorers today face increasing complexities like rising project uncertainty and immense pressure to bring new resources online faster," said John Mern, CEO Terra AI. "This investment enables us to move to the next phase of Terra AI's growth by scaling our generative modeling engine, accelerating enterprise-grade deployments, and advancing the subsurface inference technology the industry needs to meet critical mineral demand." Typically, new discoveries require an average of 17 years to advance to production. Terra AI's platform integrates explorers' full dataset to produce geologically realistic 3D models that map assets and uncertainty in minutes, allowing developers to make more informed decisions faster. Its geology reasoning agent works with operators to create precise and optimized exploration plans, enabling teams to develop critical assets with minimal time, cost, and environmental disruption. The same platform is now being applied to carbon storage sites where understanding subsurface uncertainty is equally critical to selecting safe, permanent storage locations. "The world's ability to discover and develop critical resources is fundamentally constrained by outdated, fragmented exploration," said Rajesh Swaminathan, Partner at Khosla Ventures. "Terra AI is defining a new, AI-native exploration approach with their continuously improving 3D Earth model. We believe their technology will dramatically accelerate the development of the critical minerals the world needs, and we're excited to help them scale this vision globally." Over the past year, Terra AI has demonstrated modeling capabilities on mining and reservoir projects from early exploration through production and has built strong early momentum with a growing roster of commercial customers across copper, gold, REE, and reservoir projects. Its technology addresses the longest, most capital-intensive, and uncertain phase of subsurface resource development. Terra AI's modeling will dramatically compress the time and capital required to define deposits and reservoirs, opening ways to assess and develop resources at higher fidelity. "Successful exploration depends on reducing geological uncertainty and progressing opportunities efficiently," said Laurel Buckner, VP of Ventures at BHP. "Terra AI's technology has the potential to improve drill targeting, support faster prospect evaluation, and help explorers focus capital on the highest-value opportunities." The capital will accelerate deployment of Terra AI's generative geological modeling platform across mining, enhanced geothermal, and carbon storage. About Terra AI: Terra AI solves the world's most critical subsurface problems with cutting-edge artificial intelligence. The company's patented platform fuses geophysics, geochemistry, and drilling data to generate probabilistic models of the underground - driving faster, more accurate, and lower-cost resource exploration. Backed by Khosla Ventures, BHP Ventures, Rio Tinto, and others, Terra AI is already being adopted in the field and creating value for priority projects with the world's leading resource companies. Learn more at www.terraai.com. About Khosla Ventures: Khosla Ventures is a venture capital firm focused on investments in artificial intelligence, financial services, healthcare, consumer, enterprise, and sustainability sectors. It is known for making early capital investments in startups such as OpenAI, Instacart, Affirm, DoorDash, and Block. https://www.khoslaventures.com/ About BHP Ventures: BHP Ventures is the in-house venture capital arm of BHP Group Limited. The fund invests in breakthrough technologies, shaping the future of BHP and the global resources industry. BHP Ventures complements the innovation already underway within BHP by enabling new partnerships and creating opportunities to strengthen the company's portfolio and lower emissions. BHP is a global resources company that produces essential commodities the world needs, including iron ore, copper, steelmaking coal - and soon potash. With operations and projects in over 90 countries around the world, BHP is the world's largest copper producer.

finanzen.at
Apr 23rd, 2025
Terra AI joins Mining Tech Accelerator

The Mining Tech Accelerator, a partnership between Founders Factory and Rio Tinto, announced six new investments in startups focused on decarbonizing the mining value chain. Among them is Terra AI, based in Palo Alto, US, which specializes in mineral exploration to reduce drilling costs and improve accuracy. The startups will receive seed capital and join a four-month accelerator program to commercialize their technologies with Rio Tinto. The investment amounts were not disclosed.