Applied Robotics Engineer: Real-World RL for Humanoids

ZHAW; Winterthur; On-site; CHF 110,000 - 140,000; Full time

Job summary

ZHAW, the Zurich University of Applied Sciences, School of Engineering, invites applications for a Senior Robotics Engineer / Postdoctoral Researcher (60-100%). Based in the Winterthur/Zurich area, the role focuses on moving humanoid and quadruped robots from lab to industry, deploying reinforcement learning and robot foundation models with Swiss partners.

You will conduct applied R&D in the Embodied Mobile Agents group, publish results and contribute open-source code, and collaborate with

Qualifications

• PhD in robotics or CS with AI for robotics.
• Hands-on experience with real robots and prototyping.
• Competencies in robot learning and classical robotics.
• Strong programming with ROS/ROS 2, Nav2, MoveIt, PCL, OpenCV and Jetson.
• Strong research track record in AI for robotics or CV.
• Fluent in English; other languages a plus.
• Position level: research associate, 2-year appointment.

Responsibilities

• Conduct applied R&D as senior robotics engineer/postdoctoral researcher deploying RL on real robots.
• Drive topics: agentic embodied AI, robotic foundation models, RL for mobile manipulation.
• Publish results and contribute open-source code.
• Collaborate with Swiss and EU partners; projects often funded by Innosuisse.

Skills

Reinforcement learning

Robot learning

ROS / ROS 2

MoveIt

NVIDIA Jetson

Computer vision

Teleoperation

Prototyping hardware

Publications

Python

Education

PhD in robotics

PhD in CS with AI focus

Tools

Nav2

PCL

OpenCV

NVIDIA Jetson

Job description

ZHAW, the Zurich University of Applied Sciences, School of Engineering, invites applications for a Senior Robotics Engineer / Postdoctoral Researcher (60-100%). Based in the Winterthur/Zurich area, the role focuses on moving humanoid and quadruped robots from lab to industry, deploying reinforcement learning and robot foundation models with Swiss partners.

You will conduct applied R&D in the Embodied Mobile Agents group, publish results and contribute open-source code, and collaborate with