Robotics R&D Engineer III

Job Description

Responsibilities

• Design, implement, and tune real-time controllers for robot arms and multi-fingered hands

• Bring up new robot hardware: ros2_control hardware interfaces and drivers, high-rate control loops, fault handling and safety limits, and integration with teleoperation and data-collection pipelines

• Perform system identification of arms and hands

• Validate controller and model accuracy against hardware, quantify and reduce the sim-to-real gaps

• Build controller and hardware benchmarks and produce clear, data-driven reports

• Partner closely with policy researchers to deploy RL and behavior-cloning policies on hardware — tune the controller/policy interface, diagnose failures, and close the loop on training-environment fidelity

• Write clean, tested code and document systems for a cross-functional team

Skills and Requirements

Minimum Qualifications

• BS in Mechanical, Electrical, or Computer Engineering, Robotics, or a related field, or equivalent practical experience

• 3+ years of hands-on experience implementing and tuning controllers on real robot hardware

• Strong grounding in robot dynamics and control: rigid-body dynamics, impedance/admittance control, operational-space control, stability and bandwidth analysis

• Proficiency in C++ and Python

• Experience with ROS 2 (ros2_control preferred) and real-time Linux-based robot systems

• Experience with experimental data analysis: designing tests, fitting models, and interpreting frequency- and time-domain responses Preferred Qualifications

• MS or PhD in robotics or controls

• Experience with dexterous or multi-fingered hands, tendon-driven or backdrivable actuators, or torque-controlled arms

• System identification and model calibration for physics simulators (MuJoCo, Isaac, or similar); familiarity with domain randomization

• Experience deploying learned policies (RL, imitation learning) on hardware, or working alongside policy researchers

• Familiarity with rigid-body dynamics libraries and optimization tooling

• Experience with teleoperation systems (VR or exoskeleton-based) and data-collection pipelines

• Experience with force/torque sensing, tactile sensing, or motor-current-based force estimation

We are a company committed to creating diverse and inclusive environments where people can bring their full, authentic selves to work every day. We are an equal employment opportunity/affirmative action employer that believes everyone matters. Qualified candidates will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, ethnicity, religion, sex (including pregnancy), sexual orientation, gender identity and expression, marital status, national origin, ancestry, genetic factors, age, disability, protected veteran status, military or uniformed service member status, or any other status or characteristic protected by applicable laws, regulations, and ordinances. If you need assistance and/or a reasonable accommodation due to a disability during the application or the recruiting process, please send a request to [email protected].