Autonomous Lab Robotics Scientist (Physical AI)

Genentech; San Francisco (CA); On-site; USD 168,000 - 312,000; Full time

Job summary

Genentech is seeking a Senior Physical AI & Robotics Scientist to lead hands-on development of autonomous laboratory systems. You will deploy 3D perception, digital twins, and edge ML on robotic hardware using NVIDIA Isaac, Omniverse, and Metropolis, bridging foundation models with real hardware.

Applicants should have a MS or PhD in a technical field with 5+ years in Physical AI or robotics, strong C++/Python, and experience with ROS 2, MoveIt 2, and simulation tools.

Qualifications

• MS in Computer Science, Robotics, Electrical Engineering, or related field with 5+ years of experience, or a PhD with 2+ years in deploying Physical AI or robotics.
• Strong background in 3D computer vision, kinematics, motion planning (ROS 2, MoveIt 2, cuMotion), and ML frameworks (PyTorch) with C++/Python skills.
• Hands-on experience with robotics simulation and sim-to-real validation (NVIDIA Isaac Sim, MuJoCo, Gazebo) and edge-inference optimization.

Responsibilities

• Develop 3D computer vision perception pipelines (point clouds, depth maps, pose estimation) and dynamic motion planning algorithms (ROS 2, MoveIt 2, cuMotion) to enable reliable arm manipulation, hand-eye calibration, grasping, and AMR navigation in dynamic workcells.
• Build multi-physics simulation environments (NVIDIA Isaac Sim/Lab, Newton Engine) to model robot-labware interactions, evaluate LLM-generated execution plans inside digital twins before deployment, and train policy recovery models.
• Apply system identification, domain randomization, and sim-to-real tuning to ensure simulation-trained control policies execute predictably on physical hardware.
• Fine-tune multimodal Vision AI models (VLMs, NVIDIA Cosmos) using synthetic failure datasets (Isaac Sim) for real-time detection of lab anomaly modes (spills, bubbles, dropped microplates, tilted lids, tip-pick misses).
• Optimize low-latency inference with TensorRT on NVIDIA Jetson (Thor/Orin) edge hardware, combining visual servoing and closed-loop feedback control so systems self-correct without halting master workflows.
• Harness OpenUSD scene graphs to represent workcell geometry and state, integrating synchronization services to link executable digital twins across heterogeneous hardware APIs (SiLA 2, gRPC, vendor SDKs).

Skills

3D computer vision

Kinematics

ROS 2 / MoveIt 2

PyTorch

C++ / Python

Edge inference / TensorRT

Education

MS in Computer Science / Robotics / EE

PhD with 2+ years in deploying Physical AI/robotics

Tools

NVIDIA Isaac Sim/Lab

MuJoCo / Drake / Gazebo

NVIDIA Jetson TensorRT

Omniverse / Metropolis

Job description

Genentech is seeking a Senior Physical AI & Robotics Scientist to lead hands-on development of autonomous laboratory systems. You will deploy 3D perception, digital twins, and edge ML on robotic hardware using NVIDIA Isaac, Omniverse, and Metropolis, bridging foundation models with real hardware.

Applicants should have a MS or PhD in a technical field with 5+ years in Physical AI or robotics, strong C++/Python, and experience with ROS 2, MoveIt 2, and simulation tools.