Physical AI Engineer, Lead

Booz Allen Hamilton•Usa, DC

About The Position

The Physical AI Engineer, Lead will shape, design, and deploy next-generation robotic and multimodal AI capabilities supporting complex national security, defense, and emerging-technology missions. The role leads multidisciplinary engineering teams, builds scalable physical AI systems, and sets technical strategy across autonomy, reinforcement learning, world modeling, sim-to-real transfer, robotic perception, and embodied AI. It partners with mission leaders to turn advanced research into operational, production-grade capabilities. The position covers architecture, development, and deployment of Physical AI systems for autonomous systems and embodied agents. It includes developing training pipelines using simulation and synthetic data, integrating vision, language, and action models into physical platforms, translating research into production solutions, mentoring engineers, setting engineering standards, and working with stakeholders on strategy and emerging technologies. The role also represents Booz Allen at industry forums, technical exchanges, and client engagements.

Requirements

At least 8 years of experience developing AI, robotics, autonomous systems, or machine-learning solutions.
Experience delivering production AI systems from concept through deployment.
Experience with one or more of reinforcement learning, imitation learning, robot learning, computer vision, planning, autonomous navigation, manipulation, sensor fusion, multimodal AI, or foundation models.
Experience with Python, C++, and modern AI frameworks such as PyTorch, JAX, TensorFlow, or Ray.
Experience with robotic middleware and simulators such as ROS, ROS2, Isaac Sim, MuJoCo, or Gazebo.
Ability to obtain a Secret clearance.
Master's degree.

Nice To Haves

Experience publishing research in robotics, embodied AI, or machine learning.
Experience with robot foundation models, world modeling, and digital twins.
Experience in humanoid robotics, dexterous manipulation, or mobile robotics.
Experience with distributed training, GPU acceleration, and edge or embedded deployment.
Experience contributing to open-source AI or robotics ecosystems.
Doctorate degree in computer science, robotics, AI, electrical engineering, or mechanical engineering.

Responsibilities

Lead the architecture, development, and deployment of Physical AI systems for autonomous systems and embodied agents.
Design and implement models for perception, planning, motion control, manipulation, navigation, and sensor fusion.
Develop large-scale training pipelines using simulation, synthetic data generation, imitation learning, and reinforcement learning.
Integrate multimodal AI, including vision, language, and action models, into real-world physical AI platforms.
Translate research innovations, including robot learning, foundation models, and world models, into production-ready solutions.
Mentor and guide senior engineers and establish engineering best practices and technical standards.
Partner with business, research, and mission stakeholders to define strategy and assess emerging technologies.
Represent Booz Allen in industry forums, technical exchanges, and client engagements.