Robot Software Engineer (Simulation)

Rhoda ai • Palo Alto, CA

4d

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 Software Engineer to build and validate the simulation environments that underpin our humanoid robotics platform. You'll develop physics-based models that closely mirror real hardware, and own the software pipelines that bridge simulation and the physical world — from motion planning and control to sim-to-real transfer for AI policy training. This is a high-impact role on a small team building foundational technology for Gen 0 and Gen 1 robot programs.

Requirements

• 4+ years of experience in robotics software engineering or a closely related field
• Proficiency with at least one major robotics simulation platform (MuJoCo, IsaacSim, PyBullet, Gazebo, or similar)
• Strong software engineering fundamentals — production-quality Python and/or C++, clean interfaces, and a commitment to testable, well-documented code
• Hands-on experience with core robotics software: motion planning, control loops, state estimation, or actuator interfaces
• Experience integrating software components across a complex stack — connecting simulation to perception, logging, or data collection systems
• Comfort working directly with physical hardware and debugging sim-to-real discrepancies
• Strong communication and collaboration skills — able to work closely with both hardware and AI/ML teammates

Nice To Haves

• Experience building sim-to-real pipelines for reinforcement learning or imitation learning policy training
• Familiarity with humanoid or legged robot platforms and the unique modeling challenges they present
• Background in whole-body control, trajectory optimization, or model predictive control
• Experience with ROS/ROS2 or similar robotics middleware in production or research contexts
• Prior work on early-stage hardware programs (prototype or pre-production robots)
• Contributions to open-source robotics simulation tooling or research publications in robotics or robot learning

Responsibilities

• Build and maintain simulation environments for our humanoid robot platforms, including physics-based models (e.g., MuJoCo, IsaacSim, PyBullet, or similar) that closely match real hardware behavior
• Develop and validate robot software — including motion planning, control loops, state estimation, and actuator interfaces — in simulation before deployment to physical systems
• Integrate simulation pipelines with the broader software stack: perception, teleoperation, logging, and data collection infrastructure
• Collaborate with the AI/ML team to build sim-to-real pipelines that accelerate policy training and evaluation
• Work directly with prototype hardware, debugging discrepancies between simulated and real behavior and iterating on both
• Contribute to software architecture decisions for our growing robot software platform across multiple robot programs
• Write production-quality code that other engineers can build on: clean interfaces, good documentation, and testable components

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Mid Level
• Education Level: No Education Listed