---
title: 'VP, Engineering at Odyssey'
canonical: 'https://feeny.ai/job/vp-engineering-odyssey-palo-alto-tka73j1qbv60'
type: 'job'
last_seen: '2026-09-10'
---

# VP, Engineering at Odyssey

- **Company:** Odyssey
- **Location:** Palo Alto, CA
- **Employment:** full-time
- **Posted:** 2026-07-21
- **Last confirmed live:** 2026-09-10
- **Apply:** https://jobs.ashbyhq.com/odysseyml/f7748ea2-ce46-4c1b-bff5-f4edbcdee45c

## Job description

## Who we are

[Odyssey](https://odyssey.ml) is an AI lab pioneering general world models: causal, multimodal systems that learn to predict and interact with the world over long horizons. This foundational technology promises to revolutionize robotics, science, healthcare, education, gaming, defense, and beyond. Odyssey’s founders previously pioneered the most complex application of physical AI: self-driving cars. They’ve now brought together a world-class research team from DeepMind, Tesla, Waymo, Meta, Apple, and Wayve, who have made significant contributions to language models (DeepMind Gemini), video models (DeepMind Veo), world models (Wayve GAIA), and autonomous systems (Tesla FSD). Odyssey has raised significant venture capital from GV, Amazon, AMD, EQT, NVIDIA, Natural Capital, In-Q-Tel, Elad Gil, Jeff Dean, Guillermo Rauch, Garry Tan, Kyle Vogt, and researchers from OpenAI, DeepMind, MSL, Recursive, and Thinking Machines.

## What we're looking for

You'll lead our ML platform and infrastructure group, spanning our data platform, evaluation systems and tooling, and compute. This leader will serve as a trusted partner to the founders and stakeholders across product and technology, and will report directly to our CTO and co-founder.

## What you'll do

- Own the roadmap and vision for the ML platform across data, evaluation, and compute topics. This consists of software systems, tooling, and infrastructure.
- Build and scale the engineering group, across multiple teams and locations
- Partner closely with the Research team, Applied ML team, and other technical leaders so platform work stays tied to research velocity
- Make the prioritization calls between researchers, leadership and product
- Stay close enough to the technical details to drive product vision and get hands on with the code when needed

## Who you are

- 10+ years of engineering experience with deep expertise in data, evaluation, and compute infrastructure.
- You've worked in an ML systems org and know first-hand what slows ML development down.
- You’ve led engineering groups of 20 or more across multiple teams and locations
- Based in Palo Alto or London, in office 3+ days a week, ideally full time
- Energized by working in a fast-paced startup environment and by the company, the mission and platform

## About Odyssey

## Company Overview
- **One-liner**: Odyssey is an AI lab pioneering general-purpose world models—causal, interactive, real-time simulations that learn from video and multimodal data to enable new forms of intelligence.
- **Entity Type**: Private (Series B, raised $310M)
- **Headquarters**: Palo Alto, California, United States (also offices in London, England and Zurich, Switzerland) [builtin.com](https://builtin.com/company/odyssey-odysseyml)
- **Founded**: 2023 [builtin.com](https://builtin.com/company/odyssey-odysseyml)
- **Founders**: Oliver Cameron (Co-Founder & CEO), Jeff Hawke (Co-Founder & CTO) [odyssey.ml/careers](https://odyssey.ml/careers)

## Core Business
- **Primary industry/industries**: Artificial intelligence, machine learning, world modeling, robotics, simulation.
- **Target customers**: B2B (developers, enterprises in robotics, gaming, healthcare, advertising, retail, defense) and B2C (future consumer applications like interactive entertainment, personal assistants, immersive fitness).
- **Mission or purpose statement**: "We learn the world to make it better." [odyssey.ml/about](https://odyssey.ml/about)

## Products & Services
- **[Odyssey-2](https://odyssey.ml/)**: A general-purpose world model that generates minutes-long, interactive, real-time simulations from text or image prompts. It streams frame-by-frame and can be interacted with by multiple participants (human or AI). Designed for applications in robotics rehearsal, gaming, interactive advertising, virtual try-ons, and more.
- **[Agora-1](https://odyssey.ml/about)**: A multi-agent world model enabling multiple participants—human or AI—to share and interact within the same world simulation in real-time. Built on a novel RL-driven adversarial framework to improve world model performance.
- **[Starchild-1](https://odyssey.ml/about)**: The first real-time multimodal world model, going beyond visual observation to learn from richer multimodal interaction with the world.

## Market Standing
- **Valuation/Market Cap**: Not disclosed
- **Key Metric**: $310M Series B funding (latest round) [odyssey.ml/about](https://odyssey.ml/about)
- **Notable Investors/Partners**: Backed by Jeff Dean (Chief Scientist, DeepMind), Soumith Chintala (CTO, Thinking Machines), Max Jaderberg (President, Isomorphic Labs) [odyssey.ml/careers](https://odyssey.ml/careers); also advised/invested by Tim Rocktäschel (Co-Founder, Recursive) [odyssey.ml/careers](https://odyssey.ml/careers)
- **Growth Signals**: Rapid hiring (16+ open roles across research, engineering, product, policy, HR, and operations) [linkedin.com](https://www.linkedin.com/company/odysseyml); launched breakthrough world models (Odyssey-2, Agora-1, Starchild-1); offices in 3 global tech hubs; employee headcount growing ~33% year-over-year (approx. 37–46 employees) [linkedin.com](https://www.linkedin.com/company/odysseyml) [builtin.com](https://builtin.com/company/odyssey-odysseyml)

## Competitive Advantages
- **Pioneering approach**: Odyssey is one of the first labs to focus exclusively on general-purpose world models, shifting beyond language models to simulate physics, causality, and intelligence.
- **Top-tier talent**: Team recruited from leading AI labs (DeepMind, Meta, Waymo, Cruise, Wayve) and companies like Apple and Roblox [linkedin.com](https://www.linkedin.com/company/odysseyml).
- **Compute & infrastructure**: Building inference infrastructure capable of scaling to hundreds of thousands of users within a year while minimizing TFLOPS per user [odyssey.ml/careers](https://odyssey.ml/careers).
- **Research output**: Publicly released state-of-the-art models (Odyssey-2, Agora-1, Starchild-1) that materially advance physical accuracy and interactivity in world models [odyssey.ml](https://odyssey.ml/).

## Strategic Focus
- **Current priorities**: Scaling world model inference for real-time, interactive consumer and enterprise products; pushing research boundaries in multimodal learning, reinforcement learning, and multi-agent simulation; building the "financial engine" for a compute-intensive AI business (capital allocation, unit economics) [odyssey.ml/careers](https://odyssey.ml/careers).
- **Direction for growth**: Applying world models to robotics (sim-to-real rehearsal), gaming, healthcare, advertising, retail, defense, education, and personal assistant systems. Aiming to "proliferate interactive intelligence into the world" [odyssey.ml](https://odyssey.ml/).

## Why Work Here
- **Culture and autonomy**: Odyssey prizes "autonomy and ownership" – deep work with accountability, and the freedom to tackle meaningful, open-ended scientific problems [odyssey.ml/careers](https://odyssey.ml/careers).
- **Team**: Collaborate with researchers and engineers from leading labs who have driven major AI advancements. Strong peer group focused on original science [odyssey.ml/careers](https://odyssey.ml/careers).
- **Work policy**: Hybrid model – employees work from physical offices in Palo Alto, London, or Zurich. No remote-only option; typical time on-site not specified [builtin.com](https://builtin.com/company/odyssey-odysseyml).
- **Compensation & benefits**: Competitive salary and equity grants reflecting the demands of breakthrough AI research. Benefits include healthcare, disability insurance, 401(k), generous parental leave, PTO, company socials, and wellness initiatives [builtin.com](https://builtin.com/company/odyssey-odysseyml).
- **Notable for job seekers**: Rapidly scaling (raised $310M, hiring across research, engineering, product, and operations). Opportunity to shape a nascent category (world models) from the ground up.

## Sources
1. [odyssey.ml/careers](https://odyssey.ml/careers) – Careers page with team, culture, and benefits details.
2. [odyssey.ml/about](https://odyssey.ml/about) – About page with mission, funding, and model announcements.
3. [odyssey.ml](https://odyssey.ml/) – Homepage with product descriptions and applications.
4. [builtin.com](https://builtin.com/company/odyssey-odysseyml) – Built In company profile with employee count, perks, and office locations.
5. [linkedin.com](https://www.linkedin.com/company/odysseyml) – LinkedIn company page with headcount, growth, and talent sources.

## Other roles at Odyssey

- [Controller](https://feeny.ai/job/controller-odyssey-palo-alto-1anypxk5yk02) — Palo Alto, CA
- [Member of Technical Staff, Infrastructure Engineer](https://feeny.ai/job/member-of-technical-staff-infrastructure-engineer-odyssey-palo-alto-78e1qwcgzrya) — Palo Alto, CA
- [Research Internship](https://feeny.ai/job/research-internship-odyssey-palo-alto-v0rv7s8cfzfd) — Palo Alto, CA
- [Executive Business Partner](https://feeny.ai/job/executive-business-partner-odyssey-london-dgfbmxp8z5zn) — London, United Kingdom
- [Member of Technical Staff, Data Engineering](https://feeny.ai/job/member-of-technical-staff-data-engineering-odyssey-palo-alto-n16zsqmcv70j) — Palo Alto, CA
- [Member of Technical Staff, Applied Research](https://feeny.ai/job/member-of-technical-staff-applied-research-odyssey-palo-alto-k90agz5z47tm) — Palo Alto, CA
- [Member of Technical Staff, Foundation Models](https://feeny.ai/job/member-of-technical-staff-foundation-models-odyssey-palo-alto-0h5g5ayn20dg) — Palo Alto, CA
- [Member of Technical Staff, TLM: Research Scientist](https://feeny.ai/job/member-of-technical-staff-tlm-research-scientist-odyssey-palo-alto-8d6e4yxm6gc9) — Palo Alto, CA
- [AI Resident](https://feeny.ai/job/ai-resident-odyssey-palo-alto-rkf461yxgdzs) — Palo Alto, CA
- [VP, Research](https://feeny.ai/job/vp-research-odyssey-london-dsxjptdqvpfn) — London, United Kingdom