Principle Roboticist, Robot Foundation Model

Wayve • Sunnyvale, CA

2d • $295,500 - $375,100 • Hybrid

About The Position

The MEGA (Multi-Embodiment Generalist Agent) team is seeking a founding member to build foundation models for general-purpose robots beyond self-driving vehicles. The focus is on creating intelligent agents that can perceive, reason, move, and manipulate the physical world across diverse embodiments, including mobile manipulators, dual-arm platforms, and humanoids. This role involves hands-on work with real robots, debugging across hardware, software, and ML systems, and moving between research exploration and engineering execution. Strong judgment in experiment design, data quality, and model evaluation is crucial, as is clear communication across research, engineering, and product teams. The role offers 0→1 ownership and thrives in ambiguity within a fast-moving research environment.

Requirements

• Experience in robot manipulation; working with robot hardware.
• Experience leading robotics efforts.
• Strong programming experience in C++ and/or Python.
• Experience with robot software systems such as control, planning, ROS, or ROS2.
• 5+ years of relevant industry experience.

Nice To Haves

• Experience in Machine Learning, in particular training and deploying learned robot policies.
• A track record of high-quality research or engineering work in robotics, embodied AI, or related areas.
• Publications in top-tier conferences such as ICRA, CoRL, or IROS are highly valued.
• PhD preferred; Master's degree with equivalent experience also welcome.

Responsibilities

• Build, integrate, and maintain robot hardware platforms for research and experimentation.
• Develop and maintain robot software in C++ and Python, including control, planning, ROS/ROS2-based systems, and deployment infrastructure.
• Create infrastructure for policy deployment, data collection, evaluation, and the robotics data flywheel.
• Run real-world robot experiments and define data collection pilots that inform model development.
• Collaborate with research teams on robot policy development, model evaluation, and data strategy.
• Debug and troubleshoot robotic software, hardware, and policy failures.
• Build robust deployment, regression, and validation tests for robot systems.
• Help shape technical direction across robotics, ML, hardware, and experimentation.

Benefits

• Salaries benchmarked against the market annually
• Meaningful equity, sharing in the ownership and long term success of Wayve
• Relocation support and visa sponsorship where applicable
• Hybrid working, core hours and the chance to work hands on in vehicle workshops and labs
• Learning and development budgets with support for training, conferences and growth
• Comprehensive benefits including health insurance, dental, enhanced maternity and paternity leave, retirement or pension where applicable, access to therapists, wellbeing partnerships, team socials and more

What This Job Offers

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