Robotics Engineer, Technical Lead

Applied Intuition•Sunnyvale, CA

3d•Hybrid

About The Position

This is a founding technical role helping build and shape Applied Intuition’s robotics organization from the ground up. You will set the technical direction for robotics software and AI, write production code, and build functional demos on physical hardware from day one. The role is weighted heavily toward software and learned behaviors, with the expectation that you can engage meaningfully across the hardware stack when needed. At Applied Intuition, you will: Define and own the technical architecture for humanoid robotics software, spanning perception, planning, control, and learned behaviors Write production-quality code in Python and C++ and ship it to physical robots — this is a hands-on individual contributor role first Design, train, evaluate, and deploy learning-based policies for manipulation and locomotion Build functional demonstrations on multiple robot hardware platforms that prove out capabilities and inform the product roadmap Establish simulation infrastructure and validate behaviors in physics-based environments before deploying to hardware Instrument robots, analyze telemetry and failure data, and iterate quickly to improve robustness in real-world conditions Work with teleoperation and data collection pipelines to generate training data and close the sim-to-real gap Identify and recruit the next engineers on the team

Requirements

BS, MS, or PhD in Robotics, Computer Science, Electrical Engineering, or a related field, or equivalent hands-on experience
7+ years of experience in robotics software development, with a meaningful portion on physical humanoid, legged, or highly dexterous manipulation platforms
Proven track record shipping learning-based systems — behavior cloning, RL, or VLA policies — to real robots in production or near-production settings
Strong proficiency in Python and C++ for robotics and ML systems; experience with PyTorch or equivalent deep learning frameworks
Deep understanding of robotics fundamentals: kinematics, dynamics, control theory, state estimation, and perception
Experience building and evaluating visuomotor or multimodal policies end to end, from data collection through deployment
Ability to operate independently in an early-stage environment, make architectural decisions with limited information, and build from scratch
Comfort on the lab floor — debugging physical robots, running hardware-in-the-loop tests, and iterating on live systems

Nice To Haves

Experience with state-of-the-art bi-dexterous mobile hardware platforms, including dexterous manipulation and whole body control
Familiarity with hardware bring-up, sensor integration, or embedded systems; ability to engage with mechanical and electrical teams at a subsystem level
Background in SLAM, 3D perception, or sensor fusion (IMU, lidar, cameras, force/torque)
Experience with physics simulators such as MuJoCo, NVIDIA Isaac Sim, or Gazebo
Familiarity with ROS/ROS2 or similar robotics middleware
Publication record or open-source contributions in robot learning, embodied AI, or manipulation

Responsibilities

Define and own the technical architecture for humanoid robotics software, spanning perception, planning, control, and learned behaviors
Write production-quality code in Python and C++ and ship it to physical robots
Design, train, evaluate, and deploy learning-based policies for manipulation and locomotion
Build functional demonstrations on multiple robot hardware platforms that prove out capabilities and inform the product roadmap
Establish simulation infrastructure and validate behaviors in physics-based environments before deploying to hardware
Instrument robots, analyze telemetry and failure data, and iterate quickly to improve robustness in real-world conditions
Work with teleoperation and data collection pipelines to generate training data and close the sim-to-real gap
Identify and recruit the next engineers on the team