Principal Applied Robotics Engineer

Mayo Clinic • Rochester, MN

3d • $185,245 - $277,867

About The Position

Mayo Clinic’s enterprise robotics portfolio spans 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, and are evolving from sensor-driven deterministic robots toward AI-driven autonomous systems.

The Principal Applied Robotics Engineer is the most senior capability-engineering individual contributor, with broad technical authority across enterprise-critical initiatives. The role sets engineering direction for applied robotic behavior, perception, navigation, manipulation, and autonomy across the portfolio, and serves as the definitive technical resource for the most challenging capability and feasibility problems. In close partnership with research scientists responsible for forward-looking research, the principal leads hands-on productionization and enterprise-scale evaluation of emerging capabilities without duplicating the research mandate, and partners with enterprise architects on standards.

This individual-contributor role has no direct reports and provides broad functional and technical leadership. The incumbent is expected to model stewardship and integrity and to develop 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.
• Experience leading 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 programming experience in C++ and Python 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 applying AI/ML techniques 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 portfolio.
• Serve as the definitive technical resource for complex robotic 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 multiple enterprise-critical initiatives.
• Model stewardship and integrity and contribute to developing others.

Benefits

• Competitive compensation.
• Comprehensive benefit plans.
• Multiple medical plan options.
• Dental coverage through Delta Dental or a reimbursement account for flexible coverage.
• Affordable vision plan with a national network.
• HSA and FSA options for eligible expenses.
• Competitive retirement package.
• Continuing education and advancement opportunities.

What This Job Offers

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