Robotics Research Engineer / Scientist — Robot Learning
Maxinsights
Santa Clara, CA · Posted October 9, 2026
Just laid off? Start here: a plan for the first weeks
See every open role at Maxinsights
More in California job market · Engineering jobs
More roles at Maxinsights
- Systems Software & Middleware Engineer (C++) · Santa Clara, CA
- Embodied AI Simulation Engineer · Santa Clara, CA
- Vice President of Finance · Santa Clara, CA
- Key Account Executive · Santa Clara, CA
- Solutions Engineer (AI Robotics/Autonomous Driving Data) · Santa Clara, CA
- Research Engineer — Robotics Simulation & Evaluation · Santa Clara, CA
Similar jobs
- Senior Robotics Software Engineer (Integrated System Test, Sunnyvale) · Teradyne · Sunnyvale, CA
- Robotics Software Engineer - II/III · Sri International · Menlo Park, CA
- Senior Algorithm Engineer - Sensing Algorithms · Dexcom · CA
- Staff Algorithm Engineer - Advanced Sensing Algorithms · Dexcom · CA
- Staff Autonomy Systems Engineer · Joby Aviation · Concord, CA
- Senior Autonomy Systems Engineer · Joby Aviation · Concord, CA
Where Santa Clara, CA ranks
Where Santa Clara, CA placed in our monthly rankings, month by month. Each month stays online at its own address.
November 2026
- #1Best cities for sales pay after cost of living$175k · of 45
- #1Best cities for product pay after cost of living$224k · of 14
- #2Best cities for operations pay after cost of living$173k · of 41
- #2Best cities for marketing pay after cost of living$192k · of 16
- #2Best all-round cities for remote workers in the West Coast85 / 100 · of 39
- #3Best cities for finance pay after cost of living$156k · of 35
Rankings about engineering jobs
- Best cities for software and engineering jobs #1 San Francisco (3,412 openings)
- Best cities for engineering pay after cost of living #1 San Mateo ($216k)
- Most requested AI skills in engineering jobs #1 AI tools in daily work (6.1%)
- AI tools named most often in engineering jobs #1 Claude (1.7%)
- Employers with the most engineering jobs #1 Amazon (2,992 roles)
How AI is used in this kind of work
AI use among engineers, all other is little observed so far. Measured exposure for engineers, all other: 7% (little observed).
Share of this job’s tasks that AI is already used for at work, from real usage. It is not a forecast of job loss, and a low number means no use seen yet. Source: Anthropic Economic Index.
Skills this job asks for
Say which you have and which you want to build. We use it to match you to jobs like this one.
About the job
JOB DESCRIPTION:
JOB OVERVIEW
We are looking for a Robotics Research Engineer / Scientist to develop learning-based methods that enable robots to perform complex tasks in the real world.
You will work on robot learning, policy training, and real-world deployment, exploring approaches such as imitation learning, reinforcement learning, and Vision-Language-Action (VLA) models. You will help bridge the gap between research and practical robotic capabilities by developing, training, and evaluating policies on real robotic systems.
This role is ideal for someone with strong robotics or machine learning expertise who enjoys hands-on experimentation and pushing the capabilities of learning-based robotic systems.
WHAT YOU WILL OWN
- Develop and train learning-based policies for robotic manipulation and other embodied tasks.
- Apply methods such as imitation learning, reinforcement learning, diffusion policies, and VLA models.
- Work on visuomotor policies, bimanual manipulation, dexterous manipulation, and generalization across tasks or environments.
- Design data collection and training pipelines using robot demonstrations and other relevant datasets.
- Deploy trained policies on physical robots and debug performance in real-world environments.
- Design rigorous experiments to evaluate task success, robustness, and generalization.
- Analyze failures and iterate on data, model architectures, and training strategies to improve performance.
- Collaborate with infrastructure, simulation, and data teams to accelerate robot learning research.
REQUIRED QUALIFICATIONS
- A PhD in Robotics, Computer Science, Machine Learning, or a related field; alternatively, substantial hands-on experience developing learning-based robotic systems. Strong MS candidates are welcome.
- Strong programming skills in Python and experience with deep learning frameworks such as PyTorch.
- Experience with at least one learning-based robotics approach, such as imitation learning, reinforcement learning, diffusion policies, or VLA models.
- Understanding of robotic manipulation, perception, control, or visuomotor learning.
- Experience designing and conducting experiments to evaluate learned policies.
- Strong problem-solving skills and the ability to translate research ideas into working systems.
PREFERRED QUALIFICATIONS
- Experience deploying learned policies on real robots.
- Experience with bimanual or dexterous manipulation.
- Experience collecting and processing robot demonstration data.
- Experience improving task success rates, robustness, or generalization through model or data improvements.
- Research publications or contributions to open-source robotics and ML projects are a plus.
Note: We prioritize candidates with hands-on experience in learning-based robotic systems. ROS integration or traditional control systems experience alone is not sufficient for this role.
DEFAULT BENEFITS:
- Health insurance
- Vision care
- Dental coverage
- 401(k)
- Paid holidays
- PTO (Paid Time Off)
- Sick leave