---
title: 'Research Engineer / Scientist (3D Tech Lead) at World Labs'
canonical: 'https://feeny.ai/job/research-engineer-scientist-3d-tech-lead-world-labs-san-francisco-mtzh9rjcf19w'
type: 'job'
last_seen: '2026-09-07'
---

# Research Engineer / Scientist (3D Tech Lead) at World Labs

- **Company:** World Labs
- **Location:** San Francisco, CA
- **Posted:** 2026-01-28
- **Last confirmed live:** 2026-09-07
- **Apply:** https://job-boards.greenhouse.io/worldlabs/jobs/4110164009

## Job description

## About World Labs

[World Labs](https://www.worldlabs.ai/) is a frontier AI research and product company advancing spatial intelligence, the next frontier beyond large language models. Co-founded by [Dr. Fei-Fei Li](https://profiles.stanford.edu/fei-fei-li), [Justin Johnson](https://www.linkedin.com/in/justin-johnson-41b43664/) and [Ben Mildenhall](https://www.linkedin.com/in/ben-mildenhall-86b4739b/), the company is pioneering world models that perceive, generate, reason, and interact with virtual and physical worlds.

The company’s flagship product, [Marble](https://marble.worldlabs.ai/), transforms text, images, and video into fully navigable 3D worlds, unlocking applications across gaming, film, architecture, robotics, and immersive digital experiences. Backed by leading investors and with over $1B raised, World Labs is assembling a world-class team at the intersection of AI research and real-world deployment.

## Role Overview

We’re looking for a Tech Lead for 3D Modeling & Reconstruction to set technical direction and drive execution for our core 3D modeling efforts. This role is ideal for someone with a strong research science (RS) or research engineering (RE) background who has made meaningful contributions to the field of 3D reconstruction and/or modeling—through academic publications, widely used open-source projects, or production systems deployed at scale.

This is a hands-on leadership role. You’ll combine deep technical expertise with the ability to guide a high-impact team, shaping both the research roadmap and the production systems that bring modern 3D modeling methods into real-world products. You’ll work closely with research, engineering, and product partners to translate cutting-edge ideas into reliable, scalable capabilities.

## What You Will Do

- Set the technical vision and roadmap for 3D modeling and reconstruction, balancing research exploration with product-driven milestones.
- Lead the design and implementation of state-of-the-art 3D modeling systems, spanning geometry, appearance, and scene-level representations.
- Drive innovation in modern 3D modeling approaches, including learning-based and optimization-based methods, with an eye toward robustness, scalability, and real-world data.
- Guide architectural decisions around 3D representations, training pipelines, and inference systems, ensuring they integrate cleanly with broader 3D data and rendering platforms.
- Lead and mentor a small team of research scientists and/or research engineers: providing technical guidance, setting high standards, and fostering a culture of rigor and ownership.
- Own end-to-end execution of key initiatives, from early research prototypes through production deployment and iteration.
- Collaborate closely with cross-functional partners to align 3D modeling capabilities with product needs, timelines, and quality bars.
- Represent the team and its work internally and externally, including contributing to publications, technical talks, or open-source efforts where appropriate.
- Continuously evaluate emerging research and industry trends in 3D modeling and reconstruction, and translate the most promising ideas into actionable plans.

## Key Qualifications

- 8+ years of experience in 3D reconstruction, 3D modeling, computer vision, graphics, or closely related fields.
- A strong track record of impactful contributions to the field, demonstrated through academic publications, influential open-source work, or widely deployed industry products.
- Deep expertise in modern 3D modeling and reconstruction methods, including representation design, optimization strategies, and learning-based approaches.
- Proven experience leading or mentoring a small team, lab, or project group, with responsibility for technical direction and delivery.
- Strong programming skills in Python and/or C++, with experience building both research prototypes and production-quality systems.
- Hands-on experience with machine learning frameworks and large-scale experimentation or training pipelines.
- Solid understanding of how 3D modeling systems interface with data pipelines, rendering, and downstream applications.
- Comfort operating in fast-moving, ambiguous environments, making high-leverage technical decisions with incomplete information.
- High ownership mindset and a product-aware perspective: you care not just about novelty, but about reliability, performance, and impact.
- Enjoy collaborating with senior peers across research and engineering, and raising the technical bar through example, mentorship, and clear technical communication.

## Who You Are

- Fearless Innovator: We need people who thrive on challenges and aren't afraid to tackle the impossible.
- Resilient Builder: Impacting Large World Models isn't a sprint; it's a marathon with hurdles. We're looking for builders who can weather the storms of groundbreaking research and come out stronger.
- Mission-Driven Mindset: Everything we do is in service of creating the best spatially intelligent AI systems, and using them to empower people.
- Collaborative Spirit: We're building something bigger than any one person. We need team players who can harness the power of collective intelligence.

We're hiring the brightest minds from around the globe to bring diverse perspectives to our cutting-edge work. If you're ready to work on technology that will reshape how machines perceive and interact with the world, World Labs is your launchpad.

Join us, and let's make history together.

## Equal Opportunity & Pay Transparency

## Equal Employment Opportunity

World Labs is an equal opportunity employer. We do not discriminate on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, age, disability, genetic information, veteran status, or any other characteristic protected under applicable law. We welcome all qualified applicants and are committed to providing reasonable accommodations throughout the hiring process upon request.

California Pay Transparency

In accordance with California law, we disclose the following:

Pay Range

$250,000 - $350,000 base salary (good-faith estimate for San Francisco Bay Area upon hire; actual offer based on experience, skills, and qualifications)

Total Compensation

Base salary plus equity awards

Salary History

We do not request or consider prior compensation in making offers

Compliance: Cal. Lab. Code §432.3 (pay scale disclosure & salary history ban); Cal. Lab. Code §1197.5 (Equal Pay Act); Cal. Gov. Code §12940 (FEHA); 42 U.S.C. §2000e (Title VII); 29 U.S.C. §621 (ADEA); 42 U.S.C. §12101 (ADA)

## About World Labs

## Company Overview
- **One-liner**: World Labs builds frontier spatial intelligence models (Large World Models) that perceive, generate, reason, and interact with 3D environments, enabling anyone to create persistent 3D worlds from text, images, or video.
- **Entity Type**: Private (Series C)
- **Headquarters**: San Francisco, California, United States
- **Founded**: 2023
- **Founders**: Fei-Fei Li, Justin Johnson, Christoph Lassner, Ben Mildenhall

## Core Business
- **Primary industry**: Artificial Intelligence / Spatial Intelligence / Generative 3D Models
- **Target customers**: B2B – enterprises in entertainment, education, design, simulation, robotics, and storytelling; also individual creators and developers via the product Marble.
- **Mission or purpose statement**: “Spatial intelligence transforms seeing into doing, understanding into reasoning, and imagining into creating.” The company aims to unlock AI’s full potential by moving from 2D pixels to full 3D worlds.

## Products & Services
- **Marble**: A generative 3D world creation platform that produces spatially consistent, high-fidelity, and persistent 3D environments from a single image, video, text prompt, or 360 panorama. Supports multimodal inputs, interactive editing, export to various 2D/3D formats, and collaborative sharing on the web. (Type: SaaS / API)
- **Large World Models (LWMs)**: The underlying research and foundation models that power Marble and future applications for simulation, robotics, and scientific discovery. (Type: Research / API / Foundation Model)

## Market Standing
- **Valuation/Market Cap**: Not disclosed (private company).
- **Key Metric**: Total funding – **USD 1.23 billion** raised across 6 rounds (Seed, Venture Rounds, and Series C).
- **Notable Investors/Partners**: Andreessen Horowitz, Radical Ventures (lead investors in seed round), Temasek, Sanabil Investments, Cisco Investments, and 39+ other institutional investors (per CB Insights). Major tech talent hires from Meta, Google, NVIDIA, Adobe, and Microsoft.
- **Growth Signals**:
  - Headcount grew **171% YoY** to 58 employees (as of mid-2026).
  - Monthly headcount growth rate of **+23.5%**.
  - Series C of **USD 1.0 billion** closed in February 2026 (confirmed by multiple sources).
  - Early customer/product traction with Marble, including case studies and hands-on tutorials.
  - Strong research presence with regular technical publications (e.g., “A Functional Taxonomy of World Models”, “Streaming 3D Gaussian Splatting”).

## Competitive Advantages
- **Pioneering spatial intelligence**: Combines generative AI, computer vision, and graphics to create coherent, editable 3D worlds – a capability that few companies have mastered at this scale.
- **World-class founding team**: Led by Fei-Fei Li (AI pioneer, ImageNet creator) and technologists with deep expertise in neural rendering, 3D reconstruction, and generative modeling (Justin Johnson, Christoph Lassner, Ben Mildenhall).
- **Tight research-to-product loop**: The company intentionally integrates cutting-edge research with product engineering, enabling rapid deployment of novel capabilities (e.g., Marble’s multimodal input support).
- **Massive funding and investor confidence**: $1.23B in funding, including a $1B Series C, provides long runway for ambitious R&D and scaling.

## Strategic Focus
- **Current priorities**: Scaling the Marble platform, refining Large World Models, and expanding use cases into storytelling, simulation, robotics, and scientific discovery. Also focused on hiring top-tier talent across research, engineering, and product.
- **Growth direction**: Continue to push the frontier of 3D generative AI, enabling “the universal interface” for 3D content creation, and eventually interacting with both virtual and physical worlds through spatial intelligence.

## Why Work Here
- **Culture highlights**: “A tight feedback loop between research, engineering, and product” – the company values curiosity, creativity, and rapid scientific progress. They emphasize that “now is a unique moment where rapid scientific progress has thinned the barrier between research and applications.”
- **Remote/hybrid/office policy**: All current job listings are based in San Francisco, CA, indicating an on-site or hybrid expectation. The company’s headquarters is at 640 2nd Street, San Francisco.
- **Notable perks or engineering culture**: Small, fast-growing team (58 people) with deep tech talent from top AI labs (Meta, Google, NVIDIA). Strong focus on real impact and shipping products. Technical stack includes Python, TypeScript, Slack, and modern sprint/launch workflows. Opportunity to work directly with world-renowned researchers and engineers on foundational AI challenges.

## Sources
1. [World Labs website](https://www.worldlabs.ai/)
2. [World Labs About page](https://www.worldlabs.ai/about)
3. [World Labs Careers on Greenhouse](https://job-boards.greenhouse.io/worldlabs)
4. [World Labs LinkedIn](https://www.linkedin.com/company/world-labs)
5. [CB Insights – World Labs](https://www.cbinsights.com/company/world-labs)

## Other roles at World Labs

- [Sr Business Development & Ops Lead, Robotics & Physical AI](https://feeny.ai/job/sr-business-development-ops-lead-robotics-physical-ai-world-labs-san-francisco-wva4th36mx4s) — San Francisco, CA
- [Executive Business Partner (Office of the CEO)](https://feeny.ai/job/executive-business-partner-office-of-the-ceo-world-labs-san-francisco-h8tft89e4wz2) — San Francisco, CA
- [Research Engineer / Scientist (Robot Learning)](https://feeny.ai/job/research-engineer-scientist-robot-learning-world-labs-san-francisco-8k339q5nbper) — San Francisco, CA
- [Performance Engineer (Inference, Training & GPU)](https://feeny.ai/job/performance-engineer-inference-training-gpu-world-labs-san-francisco-8zx2g2p309p9) — San Francisco, CA
- [Research Engineer / Scientist (SLAM)](https://feeny.ai/job/research-engineer-scientist-slam-world-labs-san-francisco-6c0p98x1m6hj) — San Francisco, CA
- [Pipeline Engineer (Graphics/3D)](https://feeny.ai/job/pipeline-engineer-graphics-3d-world-labs-san-francisco-an10aaj3cm5e) — San Francisco, CA
- [Senior Product Engineer (Tech Lead)](https://feeny.ai/job/senior-product-engineer-tech-lead-world-labs-san-francisco-tdya350kb5fa) — San Francisco, CA
- [Research Scientist (Generative Modeling)](https://feeny.ai/job/research-scientist-generative-modeling-world-labs-san-francisco-r7yv2e73347f) — San Francisco, CA