Research Scientist, Robotics, DeepMind

Google LLC; Cambridge (MA); On-site; USD 174,000 - 252,000; Full time

Job summary

Google LLC’s DeepMind Robotics unit is seeking a research-focused roboticist to advance foundation models and real-world robot control. The role focuses on integrating AI into physical agents to enable intelligent robotic systems and broad deployment across applications.

You will contribute to Gemini Robotics, Gemini Robotics On-Device, and related VLA models, collaborating with industry partners to scale capabilities while prioritizing safety and ethics in deployment.

Qualifications

• PhD in Computer Science or related field or equivalent practical experience.
• Experience contributing to research communities or publishing papers at conferences (e.g., NeurIPS, CoRL, ICML, ICLR).
• Experience working with simulators and robots.

Responsibilities

• Design, implement, train, and evaluate large models and algorithms for robotic agents to make breakthroughs and unlock new robot capabilities.
• Write software to implement research ideas and iterate quickly.
• Participate in a wide variety of research, including learning from simulation, reinforcement learning, learning from demonstrations, vision-language-action (VLA) models, transformers, video generation, robot control, humanoid robots, and more.
• Work effectively with a large collaborative team with changing agendas to meet ambitious research goals.
• Generate creative ideas, set up experiments, and test hypotheses to report and present research findings clearly and efficiently both internally and externally.

Skills

Neural networks

Robotics simulation

Robot manipulation

Python programming

Research publications

Education

PhD in Computer Science or related field

Tools

Python

Job description

Minimum qualifications:

• PhD degree in Computer Science, a related field, or equivalent practical experience.
• Experience contributing to research communities or efforts, including publishing papers at conferences (e.g., NeurIPS, CoRL, ICML, ICLR).
• Experience working with simulators and robots.

Preferred qualifications:

• Experience training neural networks using large datasets or simulation to improve real robot behavior.
• Experience in robot manipulation.
• Experience with Python programming.

About the job

We believe there are many problems in the world in which robotics could play a significant role in making it easier, faster and safer for people to get things done. We’re looking for roboticists, designers, hardware and software engineers to help us explore these possibilities, develop breakthrough technologies, and build new products that could help millions of people.

At DeepMind Robotics, we are pioneering the integration of AI into the physical world to power an era of physical agents. By enabling robots to perceive, plan, think, use tools, and act, we empower them to solve increasingly tasks.

In this role, you will focus on building foundation models, such as advanced vision-language-action (VLA) models, which combine Gemini’s world understanding with physical actions to provide direct robotic control. These include Gemini Robotics, our most advanced Gemini model for the physical world, and Gemini Robotics On-Device, our fastest Gemini model that functions without a data network.

These models allow robots to perform a broad range of tasks, respond interactively to their environment, achieve high dexterity, and reason over long, multi-step sequences. Beyond model building, we are committed to advancing general-purpose robotics, specifically in areas like agentic reasoning, real-world understanding, action generalization, human-robot interaction, dexterity, whole-body control, and continual learning. To deploy these innovations at scale, you will partner with key robotics companies to bring this intelligence to the physical world across a broad array of applications.

Artificial intelligence will be one of humanity’s most transformative inventions. At Google DeepMind, we are a pioneering AI lab with exceptional interdisciplinary teams focused on advancing AI development to solve complex global challenges and accelerate high-quality product innovation for billions of users. We use our technologies for widespread public benefit and scientific discovery, ensuring safety and ethics are always our highest priority.

We are pushing the boundaries across multiple domains. Our global teams offer diverse learning opportunities and varied career pathways for those driven to achieve exceptional results through collective effort.

Individual pay is determined by factors including job-related skills, experience, and relevant education or training.

US: $174000 - $252000 (USD) + 15% bonus target + equity + benefits

Learn more about benefits at Google.

Responsibilities

• Design, implement, train, and evaluate large models and algorithms for robotic agents to make breakthroughs and unlock new robot capabilities.
• Write software to implement research ideas and iterate quickly.
• Participate in a wide variety of research, including learning from simulation, reinforcement learning, learning from demonstrations, vision-language-action (VLA) models, transformers, video generation, robot control, humanoid robots, and more.
• Work effectively with a large collaborative team with changing agendas to meet ambitious research goals.
• Generate creative ideas, set up experiments, and test hypotheses to report and present research findings clearly and efficiently both internally and externally.

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Google is a global company and, in order to facilitate efficient collaboration and communication globally, English proficiency is a requirement for all roles unless stated otherwise in the job posting.

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