Technical Program Head - Advanced Robotics Research

Siemens•Berkeley, CA

11h•$203,000 - $348,000•Hybrid

About The Position

Siemens is establishing a Long-Term Research organization focused on foundational technology that may become part of Siemens businesses five or more years from now. The robotics program targets autonomous, polyfunctional robot systems that can generalize across tasks, embodiments, and industrial environments without task-specific reengineering. The program spans Munich, Shanghai, and California, with distinct site capabilities and a shared global roadmap. The Technical Program Head leads Siemens’ California research program for Autonomous, Polyfunctional Robotics, initially focused on machine learning techniques for robots. The role builds and leads the California team, sets local technical direction, coordinates with peer Technical Program Heads in Munich and Shanghai, and contributes to a shared global architecture. Research results will be tested on physical industrial testbeds and hardware prototyped in Shanghai, with an emphasis on creating one integrated system rather than disconnected site prototypes. The research agenda includes robot foundation models and policy learning; learning industrial skills through teleoperation, physical interaction, simulation, and autonomous experience; assurance of learned whole-body behavior; a shared industrial robotics benchmark; and a global architecture connecting robot intelligence, bodies, hands, control, sensing, simulation, data, and evaluation. The agenda may change as the field and Siemens’ strategy evolve, so the leader is expected to adapt while maintaining coordination across sites and engagement with California’s research ecosystem. The role is a founding site leadership position in a new long-horizon research organization, with executive sponsorship, a protected mandate, access to industrial deployment and factory-scale validation, and a defined path from research results to venture incubation or transfer into Siemens businesses.

Requirements

PhD in robotics, control, machine learning, or a closely related field, or equivalent research depth demonstrated through sustained first-tier output.
Publication record at recognized venues such as ICRA, IROS, CoRL, RSS, T-RO, or comparable, including work personally led.
Hands-on depth in at least two of the following: robot learning and foundation models for robotics; vision-language-action systems; large-scale robot data collection and training infrastructure; sim-to-real transfer; manipulation.
Experience training and evaluating real robot policies, with evidence that a system exists because of the candidate’s work.
Experience leading a research team, including hiring senior researchers and making decisions to stop projects.

Nice To Haves

Experience with cross-embodiment policy learning or multi-robot data corpora such as Open X Embodiment.
Experience building training infrastructure or data engines used beyond the candidate’s own project.
Research experience in contact-rich or force-controlled manipulation.
Open-source leadership, benchmark creation, or influence on standards in the robot learning community.
Prior founder, founding-team, or research-lead experience at a robotics venture.

Responsibilities

Own the robotics topic in the United States and lead local technical execution and research quality in California.
Build and lead the California research team, including recruiting and hiring researchers and maintaining a high hiring bar.
Set local technical direction and coordinate with peer Technical Program Heads in Munich and Shanghai under one global roadmap.
Lead research on robot foundation models and policy learning, including relevant architectures, world models, cross-embodiment policy transfer, action representations, and embodiment-conditioned adaptation.
Develop methods for robots to acquire and improve industrial skills through teleoperation, physical interaction, simulation, and autonomous experience.
Establish data-generation and training approaches for coordinated use of arms, multi-fingered hands, torso, and locomotion, including manipulation while standing or moving under load.
Develop safety concepts and assurance methods for learned whole-body behavior, including verification, runtime monitoring, simulation evidence, contact limits, fall and recovery envelopes, and certification arguments.
Lead the definition and evolution of a shared industrial robotics benchmark, including tasks, human baselines, acceptance metrics, trial protocols, and evidence requirements.
Co-own the global robotics architecture connecting robot intelligence, body, hands, control, sensing, simulation, data schema, and evaluation harness; define intelligence-side interfaces and shared action representations.
Build local partnerships with universities, frontier labs, and startups, and engage deeply with the research ecosystem in the region.
Stay current across research directions in the topic and serve as an internal Siemens authority on them.
Engage in the research community through peer-reviewed publications and participation at key events.
Lead filing of intellectual property patents arising from the program, including model architectures, data infrastructure, and adaptation methods.
Develop a transfer or venture hypothesis for program results with the global head.
Make research-direction decisions, including adapting or stopping directions when evidence or strategy calls for it, while maintaining cross-site coordination.

Benefits

Variety of health and wellness benefits.
Target incentive of 20% of base salary.
Founding site leadership role in a new long-horizon research organization with executive sponsorship and a protected mandate.
Industrial deployment surfaces, factory-scale validation, and automation platforms that frontier labs cannot replicate internally.
Defined path from research results to venture incubation or transfer into Siemens businesses.

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