Principal Applied Robotics Engineer

Mayo Clinic • Rochester, MN

5d • $185,245 - $277,867

About The Position

The Principal Applied Robotics Engineer is Mayo Clinic’s most senior individual contributor in capability engineering, exercising broad technical authority across enterprise-critical robotics initiatives. The role sets engineering direction for applied robotic behavior, including perception, navigation, manipulation, and autonomy, across an enterprise portfolio spanning clinical and surgical robotics, service and mobile robotics, logistics, transport, environmental services, and patient-facing platforms. These systems operate across multi-vendor fleets built on shared connectivity, data, security, and standards, as the organization moves from sensor-driven deterministic robots toward AI-driven autonomous systems.

The principal serves as the definitive technical resource for difficult capability and feasibility problems. In close partnership with research scientists responsible for forward-looking research, the role leads hands-on productionization and enterprise-scale evaluation of emerging capabilities without duplicating the research mandate, and partners with enterprise architects on standards. This is an individual-contributor position with no direct reports, providing broad functional and technical leadership while modeling stewardship, integrity, and a commitment to developing others in service of patients, staff, and the organization.

Requirements

• Bachelor's degree in robotics, computer science, computer engineering, electrical engineering, mechanical engineering, mechatronics, artificial intelligence/machine learning, or a related field.
• Ten years of progressively responsible relevant experience, including demonstrated technical leadership of complex initiatives.
• Extensive demonstrated authority engineering and evaluating robotic behavior and autonomy on physical platforms at scale.
• Track record setting technical direction for perception, autonomy, or manipulation.
• Deep simulation-to-reality and learning-based expertise, including approaches such as vision-language-action (VLA) and foundation models.
• Leadership of emerging-technology assessment for humanoid and generalist systems.
• Experience in healthcare or comparable safety-critical settings.

Nice To Haves

• Master's or doctoral degree in a related field.
• Significant experience developing and productionizing robotic or autonomous systems, including perception, navigation, manipulation, motion planning, and/or autonomous decision-making.
• Advanced C++ and Python programming experience and demonstrated experience developing production-quality robotics software.
• Experience with ROS/ROS 2 and related robotics frameworks, tools, and ecosystems.
• Experience integrating and fusing data from robotic sensors such as cameras, depth cameras, LiDAR, force/torque sensors, or other sensing modalities.
• Experience with robotics simulation, testing, and validation technologies such as NVIDIA Isaac Sim, Gazebo, digital twins, hardware-in-the-loop, or simulation-in-the-loop environments.
• Experience with AI/ML techniques applied to robotics, including computer vision, robot learning, reinforcement learning, foundation models, or other approaches to intelligent autonomous behavior.
• Demonstrated experience evaluating performance, reliability, safety, and failure modes of autonomous robotic capabilities in complex, dynamic, human-centered environments.
• Experience serving as a technical lead or senior individual contributor across multidisciplinary robotics initiatives, including translating emerging research into scalable, production-ready capabilities.
• Experience developing robotic or autonomous systems for healthcare, medical devices, logistics, industrial automation, or other safety- or mission-critical environments.

Responsibilities

• Set engineering direction for applied robotic behavior, perception, navigation, manipulation, and autonomy across the enterprise robotics portfolio.
• Serve as the definitive technical resource for complex robotics capability and feasibility problems.
• Lead hands-on productionization and enterprise-scale evaluation of emerging robotic capabilities in partnership with research scientists.
• Partner with enterprise architects on robotics standards.
• Provide broad functional and technical leadership across enterprise-critical robotics initiatives.
• Model stewardship, integrity, and a commitment to developing others in service of patients, staff, and the organization.

Benefits

• Medical plan options.
• Dental coverage through Delta Dental or a reimbursement account for flexible coverage.
• Vision plan with a national network.
• HSA and FSAs for eligible expenses.
• Competitive retirement package.
• Competitive compensation and comprehensive benefit plans.
• Continuing education and advancement opportunities.

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Principal