Member of Technical Staff: Policy Evaluation & Experiment Infrastructure

Walden Robotics; San Francisco (CA); On-site; USD 140,000 - 180,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Competitive compensation

Annual cash bonus

Company equity

Health insurance

401(k) with company match

Flexible PTO

Daily lunch

Job summary

Walden Robotics in San Francisco, CA, is looking for an engineer to build tooling that lets the autonomy team measure whether our robot policies improve—in simulation and on real hardware. This is a high-leverage role at the center of the research loop, with mentorship and rapid growth alongside senior engineers.

You will create pipelines to evaluate policies, design task-success metrics and dashboards, and streamline the experiment loop.

Qualifications

• Solid engineering fundamentals and a bias toward reliable tooling.
• Hands-on experience with robot policies or robotic systems.
• Genuine interest in ML systems and evaluation.
• Ability to take a well-scoped problem and deliver end to end.
• Eagerness to learn quickly from feedback and code review.

Responsibilities

• Build and maintain pipelines that evaluate robot policies in sim and on hardware.
• Implement task-success metrics, dashboards, and automated checks that turn messy robot rollouts into trustworthy signal.
• Improve the speed and reliability of the experiment loop so researchers can evaluate policies faster.
• Track down issues across the evaluation stack and in policy rollouts—from flaky jobs to misleading metrics to surprising robot behavior.
• Learn the autonomy stack alongside senior engineers and take on growing ownership.

Skills

Software fundamentals

Robot policies

ML systems

Delivery

Curiosity & drive

Tools

Python

Cloud infrastructure

Job description

Position Summary

You will build the tooling that lets the autonomy team measure whether our robot policies are actually getting better—in simulation and on real hardware. This is a high-leverage engineering role at the center of the research loop, close to real robot behavior, with strong mentorship and room to grow quickly alongside senior engineers.

Position Summary

You will build the tooling that lets the autonomy team measure whether our robot policies are actually getting better—in simulation and on real hardware. This is a high-leverage engineering role at the center of the research loop, close to real robot behavior, with strong mentorship and room to grow quickly alongside senior engineers.

Core Responsibilities

• Policy Evaluation: Build and maintain the pipelines that evaluate robot policies—in sim and on hardware—and the experiment-tracking tooling the team uses daily.
• Metrics for Robot Behavior: Implement task-success metrics, dashboards, and automated checks that turn messy robot rollouts into trustworthy, comparable signal.
• Iteration Speed: Improve the speed and reliability of the experiment loop so researchers can evaluate policies faster.
• Debugging: Track down issues across the evaluation stack and in policy rollouts—from flaky jobs to misleading metrics to surprising robot behavior.
• Growth: Learn the autonomy stack alongside senior engineers and take on growing ownership.

Required Qualifications

• Software Fundamentals: Solid engineering fundamentals and a bias toward building reliable, well-tested tooling.
• Robot Policies: Hands-on experience working with robot policies or robotic systems—running, evaluating, or debugging them (research, projects, or industry).
• ML Systems Interest: Genuine interest in ML systems and evaluation, and enthusiasm for working where research meets real robots.
• Delivery: The ability to take a well-scoped problem and deliver it end to end.
• Curiosity & Drive: Eagerness to learn quickly from feedback and code review.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience evaluating or benchmarking robot policies in simulation or on hardware.
• Exposure to ML experimentation, evaluation, or data pipelines.
• Familiarity with Python and with cloud or compute infrastructure.

Walden Robotics offers a competitive total compensation program, including salary, annual cash bonus, company equity, company-subsidized insurance programs, 401(k) with company match, flexible PTO, daily lunch, and other benefits. The pay ranges noted on our posts are for salary only.

Walden Robotics is an equal opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to age, ancestry, color, family or medical care leave, gender identity or expression, genetic information, marital status, medical condition, national origin, physical or mental disability, political affiliation, protected veteran status, race, religion, sex (including pregnancy), sexual orientation, or any other characteristic protected by applicable laws, regulations, and ordinances. If you need assistance and/or a reasonable accommodation due to a disability during the application or the recruiting process, please send a request to [e-mail].

Walden Robotics participates in E-Verify. If you receive an offer of employment from Walden, you will need to go through the E-Verify process of digital verification of your employment authorization documents as provided on the Form I-9. Participation in E-Verify does not limit your right to work and verification will only be completed after you become an employee with Walden Robotics.

At Walden Robotics, we envision a world where general-purpose robots dramatically improve the quality of life for all people—supporting us at home, at work, in factories, on farms, and beyond. To accomplish this, we are building a team of exceptional professionals who combine world-class technical skills with creative vision, grounded in humility and collaboration.