Principal Roboticist, Robot Foundation Model

EngineersOfAI; Sunnyvale, Northern (CA, KY); On-site; USD 190,000 - 290,000; Full time

Job summary

Wayve is seeking a Principal Roboticist to build a foundational robotics program within the MEGA team. You will own research directions, architect hardware-software stacks, and push toward general, robust embodied intelligence across diverse robotic embodiments.

This is a high-impact, 0→1 role in a fast-paced lab environment. You will shape the research agenda, collaborate with researchers and ML engineers, and deliver publishable results translated into scalable robotic systems.

Qualifications

• Experience in robot manipulation and working with robot hardware.
• Experience leading robotics efforts and teams.
• Strong programming in C++ and Python; comfortable with robot software stacks (control, planning).

Responsibilities

• Build, integrate, and maintain robot hardware platforms for research.
• Develop robot software in C++ and Python, including ROS/ROS2-based systems.
• Create infrastructure for policy deployment, data collection, evaluation, and the robotics data flywheel.
• Run real-world robot experiments and define data collection pilots.
• Collaborate with research teams on robot policy development, model evaluation, and data strategy.
• Debug and troubleshoot robotic software, hardware, and policy failures.
• Build robust deployment, testing, and validation for robot systems.
• Help shape technical direction across robotics, ML, hardware, and experimentation.

Skills

Robot manipulation

Leadership

C++ programming

Python programming

Robot software systems (ROS/ROS2)

Machine Learning (concepts)

Education

PhD in robotics/computer science

Master’s degree with equivalent experience

Tools

ROS/ROS2

Job description

About us

Founded in 2017, Wayve is the leading developer of Embodied AI technology. Our advanced AI software and foundation models enable vehicles to perceive, understand, and navigate any complex environment, enhancing the usability and safety of automated driving systems.

Our vision is to create autonomy that propels the world forward. Our intelligent, mapless, and hardware-agnostic AI products are designed for automakers, accelerating the transition from assisted to automated driving. In our fast-paced environment big problems ignite us—we embrace uncertainty, leaning into complex challenges to unlock groundbreaking solutions. We aim high and stay humble in our pursuit of excellence, constantly learning and evolving as we pave the way for a smarter, safer future.

At Wayve, your contributions matter. We value diversity, embrace new perspectives, and foster an inclusive work environment; we back each other to deliver impact.

Make Wayve the experience that defines your career!

The role

We are looking for a Principal Roboticist to join the Multi-Embodiment Generalist Agent (MEGA) team within Wayve Labs as a founding member.

MEGA is building foundation models for general-purpose robots beyond self-driving vehicles. Our focus is on creating intelligent agents that can perceive, reason, move and manipulate the physical world across diverse embodiments, including mobile manipulators, dual-arm platforms and humanoids.

This is a senior, high-impact role with genuine 0→1 ownership. You will help define the research agenda, technical strategy and foundations of a new robotics program, working alongside world-class researchers in foundation models, embodied intelligence and large-scale machine learning.

You will have the opportunity to work across the entire robot stack: you will select, build, integrate, and maintain robot hardware; develop the software needed to deploy and test robot policies; and work closely with research teams to shape data collection, model evaluation, and the learning loop. The goal is work on compelling and publishable research, but also to turn it into systems that demonstrate increasingly general, robust and useful behavior in the physical world.

You will collaborate closely with researchers, ML engineers, roboticists and hardware teams to move ambitious ideas rapidly from research hypotheses to large-scale experiments and impressive real-world capabilities.

This is a rare opportunity to help build a general robotics effort from the ground up—combining frontier foundation-model research with the immediacy and complexity of intelligence embodied in real machines.

What you\'ll do

• Build, integrate, and maintain robot hardware platforms for research and experimentation.
• Develop and maintain robot software in C++ and Python, including control, planning, ROS/ROS2-based systems, and deployment infrastructure.
• Create infrastructure for policy deployment, data collection, evaluation, and the robotics data flywheel.
• Run real-world robot experiments and define data collection pilots that inform model development.
• Collaborate with research teams on robot policy development, model evaluation, and data strategy.
• Debug and troubleshoot robotic software, hardware, and policy failures.
• Build robust deployment, regression, and validation tests for robot systems.
• Help shape technical direction across robotics, ML, hardware, and experimentation.

What we\'re looking for

• Experience in robot manipulation; working with robot hardware.
• Experience leading robotics efforts.
• Strong programming experience in C++ and/or Python.
• Experience with robot software systems such as control, planning, ROS, or ROS2.
• Experience in Machine Learning is welcome, in particular training and deploying learned robot policies.
• A track record of high-quality research or engineering work in robotics, embodied AI, or related areas.
• Publications in top-tier conferences such as ICRA, CoRL, or IROS are highly valued.
• PhD preferred; Master\'s degree with equivalent experience also welcome.<