Research Engineer / Research Scientist — Robotics & Physical AI

ABOUT THE ROLE This role sits at the intersection of research and engineering on a small, collaborative team building AI-driven systems that help robots learn, reason, and operate in the physical world. You'll work across learning algorithms, simulation, and hardware — pushing robot capabilities from simulation into real-world deployment and shaping how robots perceive, plan, and act. WHAT YOU'LL DO - Develop learning systems for robots, including policies, world models, and vision-language-action models. - Build and maintain simulation environments and evaluation frameworks for robotic tasks. - Apply and advance computer vision and perception algorithms for autonomous robots. - Construct pipelines connecting simulation and real-world robot deployment (real-to-sim and sim-to-real). - Work with robot hardware, sensors, actuators, and embedded systems to prototype and test capabilities. - Train and evaluate reinforcement-learning and imitation-learning systems for manipulation, locomotion, or mobile platforms. - Integrate and experiment with robot platforms to validate algorithms in the physical world. - Create tools and infrastructure that accelerate robotics research and development. - Collaborate with external robotics companies and research labs on technical problems. WHAT WE'RE LOOKING FOR - Any experience level welcome — new graduates through senior researchers and engineers are encouraged to apply. - Strong software skills in C++ and Python. - Hands-on experience with deep learning, reinforcement learning, and computer vision. - Experience developing and maintaining robotics simulation environments (e.g., Isaac Lab, MuJoCo, MJX, Genesis) and real-to-sim/sim-to-real workflows. - Practical experience with robot hardware, sensors, actuators, CAD/Blender, and embedded systems. - Familiarity with modern ML tools — LLMs, Transformers, multimodal AI, diffusion models, or AI agents — is a plus. - Comfortable moving fluidly between research, engineering, experimentation, and product development. - Must be authorized to work in the US; visa sponsorship is not available. COMPENSATION & BENEFITS Salary range: $100,000 – $300,000 USD annually, depending on experience. Equity participation is expected at this stage. Visa sponsorship is not available. LOCATION On-site in San Francisco, CA. This role is not eligible for remote work.