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 capability-engineering individual contributor for enterprise robotics. The role provides broad technical authority across enterprise-critical initiatives and sets engineering direction for robotic behavior, perception, navigation, manipulation, and autonomy across clinical and surgical robotics as well as service and mobile robotics. The portfolio includes multi-vendor fleets built on shared connectivity, data, security, and standards, and is evolving from sensor-driven, deterministic robots toward AI-driven autonomous systems.

The incumbent serves as the definitive technical resource for the most challenging capability and feasibility problems. Working closely with research scientists who own 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 is an individual-contributor role with no direct reports. It provides 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 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, and force/torque sensors.
• 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 autonomous robotic capabilities for performance, reliability, safety, and failure modes 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 robotic behavior, perception, navigation, manipulation, and autonomy across the enterprise 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.
• Develop others while modeling stewardship and integrity.

Benefits

• Competitive compensation and comprehensive benefit plans.
• 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.
• Continuing education and advancement opportunities.

What This Job Offers

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