Staff Engineer, World Model Development (Aerospace AI)

Location: Boston, Massachusetts, United States; hybrid role with the position based on-site at Merlin headquarters.

Salary: $185,000–$325,000 annual base salary, plus equity and benefits.

Company

hirify.global is an aerospace and defense startup developing autonomous flight technology and a non-human pilot for aircraft.

What you will do

• Design, train, and evaluate world models that predict aircraft state, environmental conditions, and other traffic under candidate action sequences.
• Build rollout and imagination systems that allow planners to evaluate candidate futures before selecting an action.
• Develop calibrated predictive uncertainty and out-of-distribution signals for the safety monitoring layer.
• Characterize model validity across flight regimes, weather conditions, traffic densities, and aircraft configurations.
• Work with the Data/Sim team to train in simulation, validate against flight data, and improve simulator fidelity based on discrepancies.
• Benchmark learned dynamics against physics-based and flight-controls models while maintaining reproducible evaluations.

Requirements

• Degree in computer science, artificial intelligence, data science, computer engineering, applied mathematics, or a related field.
• 10+ years of experience building and training deep learning models, including sequence, dynamics, video, or trajectory prediction.
• Strong PyTorch skills and experience with distributed training, mixed precision, experiment tracking, and debugging training runs.
• Working knowledge of dynamical systems, state estimation, or control, including the ability to interpret flight dynamics models.
• Demonstrated rigor in evaluation and uncertainty quantification, plus comfort working with real-world sensor and telemetry data.
• Applicants must be authorized to work in the United States without current or future visa sponsorship; visa sponsorship and visa transfers are unavailable.

Nice to have

• Experience with model-based reinforcement learning, latent dynamics models, or learned simulators.
• Trajectory prediction experience in autonomous driving or robotics.
• Aerospace experience in flight dynamics, aircraft performance, or air traffic.
• Experience with multimodal fusion across vision, state, and structured mission context.

Culture & Benefits

• Innovative, entrepreneurial, and team-focused startup environment.
• Health, dental, and life insurance.
• Unlimited vacation and a 401(k) with company match.
• Professional development support and work/life integration.
• On-site catered lunches, snacks, and beverages.