Research Engineer - Robotic Hardware, Simulation and Data

The Robot Age; Sunnyvale (CA); Hybrid; USD 120,000 - 180,000; Full time

Job summary

Applied Intuition in Sunnyvale is seeking a research engineer focused on robotic hardware, simulation, and data for its physical AI research group. The role supports work on autonomous driving and robotic generalists, turning experimental systems into practical development loops.

This position emphasizes a robot-facing stack where hardware behavior, simulated coverage, data quality, and evaluation align to advance real-world deployment.

Qualifications

• Research engineering experience in robotics, autonomy, machine learning, simulation, or related systems
• Ability to work across hardware-adjacent constraints, data pipelines, and model evaluation
• Strong implementation skills for experiments that need to run reliably
• Comfort collaborating with a research group in an in-office Sunnyvale environment

Responsibilities

• Build research infrastructure around robotic hardware, simulation, and data collection
• Support experiments for embodied autonomy and robotic generalist systems
• Help researchers evaluate methods on systems that reflect real deployment constraints
• Improve the loop between simulated experiments, fleet data, and robot behavior

Skills

Robotics research

Autonomy

Machine learning

Simulation

Data pipelines

Model evaluation

Hardware constraints

Job description

What the role actually is

Applied Intuition is looking for a research engineer focused on robotic hardware, simulation, and data for its physical AI research group. The work supports research on autonomous driving and robotic generalists, with an emphasis on turning experimental systems into practical development loops.

This is a research engineering role where the robot-facing stack matters: hardware behavior, simulated coverage, data quality, and evaluation all have to line up.

What you would work on

• Build research infrastructure around robotic hardware, simulation, and data collection
• Support experiments for embodied autonomy and robotic generalist systems
• Help researchers evaluate methods on systems that reflect real deployment constraints
• Improve the loop between simulated experiments, fleet data, and robot behavior

What they are asking for

• Research engineering experience in robotics, autonomy, machine learning, simulation, or related systems
• Ability to work across hardware-adjacent constraints, data pipelines, and model evaluation
• Strong implementation skills for experiments that need to run reliably
• Comfort collaborating with a research group in an in-office Sunnyvale environment

Why this one is worth a look

This is a good fit for someone who likes the practical side of robotics research. Applied is explicit that the research group is working across autonomous vehicles, industrial machines, humanoids, and dexterous hands, so the infrastructure work has a broad physical AI surface area.