Robotics Research Engineer - Robot Simulation and Evaluation

NVIDIA•Santa Clara, CA

9d•$184,000 - $356,500

About The Position

The NVIDIA Isaac team is seeking a research engineer to develop simulation tools for scientists and companies using machine learning to advance robotics. The role focuses on building tools for evaluating robot foundation models in simulation and working at the intersection of simulation and machine learning. It involves collaboration between Isaac product engineering and NVIDIA Robotics research: translating research ideas into product-ready Isaac Lab Arena capabilities, bringing product and user feedback into the research process, and encouraging adoption among research users. The position contributes to simulation frameworks on NVIDIA Omniverse, robot-learning algorithm research and evaluation, technical architecture, and evaluation standards. The engineer will also work within a software engineering team and integrate modern LLM and agentic workflows into simulation and robotics. The salary range is $184,000–$287,500 for Level 4 and $224,000–$356,500 for Level 5, with eligibility for equity and benefits.

Requirements

PhD in Computer Science, Robotics, or a related field, or equivalent experience.
At least 8 years of relevant industry or post-degree research engineering experience in robotics, simulation, or robot learning.
Ability to translate research prototypes into product or platform capabilities.
Proven track record in software design and translating research prototypes into production-ready software platforms.
Proficiency in Python.
Development experience with deep-learning software stacks such as PyTorch or JAX.

Nice To Haves

High-impact publications at leading robotics and machine-learning venues such as CoRL, RSS, ICRA, or NeurIPS.
Robot-learning expertise in reinforcement learning and/or imitation learning.
Deep expertise in GPU-accelerated physics simulation engines such as PhysX, Isaac Gym/Isaac Lab, or Newton.
Experience with NVIDIA robotics ecosystem tools such as CUDA, Warp, Isaac Lab, or ROS.
Experience developing and maintaining open-source projects.

Responsibilities

Build simulation frameworks for training and evaluating robot foundation models on NVIDIA Omniverse.
Partner with research teams to design, implement, and evaluate novel robot-learning algorithms.
Drive technical architecture, establish evaluation standards, and provide cross-team leadership between Research and Product.
Participate in software design and code reviews, testing, continuous integration, and deployment.
Train and evaluate robot foundation models.
Integrate modern LLM and agentic workflows into simulation and robotics workflows.
Work with researchers and product engineers to turn research ideas into Isaac Lab Arena capabilities that can scale to NVIDIA users.
Keep up to date with state-of-the-art robotics research.