Research Engineer / Research Scientist, Robotics and Physical AI

ABOUT THE ROLE This is a hands-on research and engineering role at a small, early-stage AI training data company focused on physical AI and robotics. You will work across the full stack, from learning algorithms and simulation to real-world robot deployment, helping push the frontier of how robots perceive, plan, and act in the physical world. 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. - Build pipelines connecting simulation and real-world robot deployment, covering real-to-sim and sim-to-real workflows. - Work directly with robot hardware, sensors, actuators, and embedded systems to prototype and validate capabilities. - Train and evaluate reinforcement-learning and imitation-learning systems for manipulation, locomotion, or mobile platforms. - Integrate and experiment with robot platforms to test 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 - Demonstrated research or engineering experience in robotics and AI, beyond academic experiments alone. New graduates with strong robotics backgrounds are welcome. - Strong software skills in both C++ and Python. - Practical experience with deep learning, reinforcement learning, and computer vision. - Hands-on experience with real-to-sim or sim-to-real robotics workflows. - Familiarity with simulation platforms such as Isaac Lab, MuJoCo, MJX, or Genesis. - Experience working with robotics hardware, sensors, embedded systems, and 3D modeling tools. - Comfort moving fluidly across research, engineering, experimentation, and product development with end-to-end ownership. - Exposure to modern multimodal AI approaches, such as transformers, diffusion models, world models, vision-language-action models, LLMs, or AI agents, is a plus. - An individual contributor mindset with motivation to ship in a small, collaborative team. COMPENSATION & BENEFITS Salary range: $100,000 to $300,000 USD annually. Visa sponsorship is not available; candidates must be authorized to work in the United States. LOCATION On-site in San Francisco, California. This role is not remote.