Robot Perception Engineer

Rhoda ai•Palo Alto, CA

About The Position

At Rhoda AI, we're building the full-stack foundation for the next generation of humanoid robots — from high-performance, software-defined hardware to the foundational models and video world models that control it. Our robots are designed to be generalists capable of operating in complex, real-world environments and handling scenarios unseen in training. We work at the intersection of large-scale learning, robotics, and systems, with a research team that includes researchers from Stanford, Berkeley, Harvard, and beyond. We're not building a feature; we're building a new computing platform for physical work — and with over $400M raised, we're investing aggressively in the R&D, hardware development, and manufacturing scale-up to make that a reality. We're looking for a Robot Perception Engineer to develop and maintain the perception systems that give our humanoid robots a real-time understanding of the world around them. You'll own the software that transforms raw sensor data into reliable, actionable perception — from sensor integration and calibration to safety-certified object detection and streaming data to our foundation models and teleoperation stack.

Requirements

4+ years of experience in robotics perception, computer vision, or a closely related field
Strong software engineering fundamentals in C++, Python, or Rust
Hands-on experience with sensor integration and calibration (cameras, LiDAR, IMUs, depth sensors)
Experience building real-time perception pipelines on embedded or edge compute platforms
Familiarity with streaming and networking systems for low-latency sensor data transport
Experience with ROS/ROS2 or similar robotics middleware in production or research contexts
Ability to debug across the full stack — from driver-level sensor issues to perception behavior on live hardware

Nice To Haves

Experience with safety-certified or safety-critical perception systems (e.g., ISO 26262, IEC 61508, or similar)
Background in multi-sensor fusion and calibration for robust perception under real-world conditions
Familiarity with teleoperation systems and the latency and reliability constraints they impose
Experience deploying and optimizing perception models on edge or onboard compute (quantization, TensorRT, etc.)
Familiarity with humanoid or legged robot platforms and the unique perception challenges they present
Prior work on early-stage hardware programs (prototype or pre-production robots)

Responsibilities

Develop and maintain real-time perception pipelines — integrating and calibrating sensors (cameras, LiDAR, IMUs, depth sensors) with our humanoid robot platforms
Build and optimize object detection, tracking, and scene understanding systems for safe operation in complex, unstructured environments
Own the streaming infrastructure that delivers sensor data reliably to foundation models, teleoperation systems, and onboard control stacks
Work closely with the AI/ML team to bridge perception outputs and learned policy inputs — ensuring low-latency, high-reliability data delivery
Implement and validate safety-certified perception components, including object detection and collision avoidance, to meet real-world deployment requirements
Support bring-up and field testing of new camera hardware and sensor configurations
Contribute to system reliability, fault detection, and recovery logic for robust real-world perception