Founding Robot Learning Research Engineer

The Founding Robot Learning Research Engineer will build the learning pipeline that turns the factory data engine into dexterous robots, spanning four areas: research and problem decomposition, core model development, data collection infrastructure, and robot and sensor systems. The role requires a PhD or equivalent depth in robot learning, strong track record of training large-scale models, and experience building and deploying real-world policies on hardware. The ideal candidate is a hands-on systems builder with low ego, evidence-driven, and comfortable with ambiguity and incomplete infrastructure, thriving in small, tight-knit teams.

Requirements

• PhD or equivalent depth in robot learning through research or hands-on systems building
• Strong track record training large-scale VLAs, VLMs, diffusion models, or world models from pretraining through finetuning
• Has shipped a working policy on real hardware: data collection, training, and real-world execution
• Deep hands-on experience with real robot hardware: bring-up, ROS/ROS2, joint control, inverse kinematics, and building the stack from scratch, not just using it
• Experience building inside and expanding upon robot simulators
• Leverages AI-assisted development aggressively to maximize output across a wide stack
• Low ego, evidence-driven, and comfortable with ambiguity and incomplete infrastructure
• Thrives in small, tight-knit teams: collaborative, friendly, and easy to work with

Benefits

• Flexible salary/equity
• Equity: 1%–2%, 4-year vest/1-year cliff; refreshers on milestones
• Short Vietnam Deployments: Fully covered (housing, flights, visa)
• Full Vietnam Relocation: Visa support, relocation flights, and flexibility for family needs