Founding Robotics Simulations Engineer

Drift; San Francisco (CA); Presencial; USD 180.000 - 240.000; Jornada completa

Descripción de la vacante

Drift is seeking a Founding Robotics Simulations Engineer in San Francisco to help build the simulation infrastructure that accelerates robotics deployment from lab to real world. You will own projects end to end, from early customer conversations to final robot deployment, and work closely with teams building humanoids, mobile manipulators, and industrial robots.

You will create physics-based digital twins, validate against real data, and turn insights into reusable tooling across the Drift

Formación

• Strong physics simulation fundamentals underpin robot behavior.
• Hands-on experience with MuJoCo, mjlab, or Isaac Sim.
• Robot modelling using URDF/MJCF/USD.
• Experience in sim-to-real or real-to-sim deployment.
• Willingness to work directly with hardware.

Responsabilidades

• Build physics-accurate digital twins of robots, worlds and assets.
• Translate simulation policies to real hardware and identify gaps.
• Design domain-randomized simulation scenarios for customer insights.
• Calibrate sim against real data using system ID and parameter estimation.
• Collaborate with customer engineering teams to scope problems and deliver milestones.
• Develop reusable tools and infrastructure across the Drift platform.

Conocimientos

Physics simulation fundamentals

MuJoCo / mjlab / Isaac Sim

Robot modelling (URDF / MJCF / USD)

Sim2real / real2sim experience

Hardware debugging / hands-on robotics

Herramientas

ROS2

OpenSim

Unity

Unreal

Docker

Linux

Descripción del empleo

Founding Robotics Simulations Engineer – Drift

Location: San Francisco | Full-time

ABOUT DRIFT

Drift (godrift.ai) is building the simulation infrastructure that helps robotics teams get robots from the lab into the real world 10x faster, reliably.

We work closely with teams building humanoids, mobile manipulators and industrial robots, on problems where physics, learning and real hardware meet.

We're a lean but fast paced, founder-led team. You'll own projects end to end, from the first conversation with a customer to the final robot deployment.

WHAT YOU’LL DO

• Build physics-accurate digital twins of robots, worlds and assets in MuJoCo, mjlab, Isaac Sim / Isaac Lab and whatever else fits the problem
• Take policies from sim to real hardware and back. Find the gaps, measure them and close them
• Design simulation scenarios with domain randomization, and turn the results into clear findings for customers
• Calibrate sim against real data with system ID and parameter estimation. A sim isn't done until it meets acceptance criteria on real measurements
• Work directly with customer engineering teams to scope ambiguous, research-heavy problems and ship real milestones on a timeline
• Help turn project work into reusable tools and infrastructure across the Drift platform

WHAT WE'RE LOOKING FOR

Core:

• Strong physics simulation fundamentals: rigid-body dynamics, contact and friction models, integrators, solver behaviour and timestep stability
• Hands-on experience with MuJoCo, mjlab, Isaac Sim / Isaac Lab, or another research or commercial simulator
• Robot modelling experience (URDF / MJCF / USD, kinematics, actuators, inertials)
• Sim2real or real2sim experience, ideally including a real deployment. Domain randomization done properly
• Comfortable working directly with hardware: you've brought up a robot, debugged a bridge, or chased down a sensor that lied

Nice to have:

• Deformable modelling: FEM, PBD/XPBD, MPM, cloth, rods and cables. You can reason about the trade-offs between accuracy, speed, stability and differentiability
• Real2sim tooling: Gaussian splatting, mesh cleanup, convex decomposition for sim speed, system ID, data-driven parameter estimation
• Reinforcement learning experience
• GPU-parallel simulation with Warp or MJX

Supporting skills:

• ROS2, OpenSim, Unity, Unreal
• Sensor models: camera and depth noise, IMU
• Linux, Docker, cloud computing

HOW YOU THINK

• You know why simulation is useful and where it lies. A sim can be trusted only when it has been validated against real data with clear acceptance criteria, and you build that validation in from day one
• You use the best agentic and AI tools to solve problems faster. You treat them as leverage, not a crutch, and you know when to check their output
• Extreme customer empathy. You want to understand the customer's robot, their deadlines and what a failure costs them, and you design around that
• You own outcomes, not tasks. High agency and proactiveness.
• You learn fast and communicate clearly with teammates and with customers' engineers
• You ship. Research-flavoured projects still get steady, visible progress every week, and something usable lands in a reasonable timeframe

WHY JOIN

• Work on real robots from leading robotics teams, not just toy problems or flashy demos
• Early-team ownership: your work shapes the product, the platform and the company
• You'll work at the point where physics, learning and real hardware meet, on some of the hardest open problems in robotics