Researcher, Robot Intelligence

Samsung Research America (SRA); Mountain View (CA); On-site; USD 163,600 - 324,500; Full time

Job summary

Samsung Research America’s Robot Intelligence Lab is hiring researchers at Senior, Staff, and Senior Staff levels to advance robotics, embodied intelligence, and real-world manipulation, navigation and reasoning.

Candidates will join groups such as Reasoning, Dexterity, Data Efficiency, and Robot Systems to push frontiers in TAMP, WAMs, VLA/VLMs, 3D perception, and scalable evaluation pipelines, with opportunities to publish and contribute to patents.

Qualifications

• PhD in EECS/Robotics or equivalent.
• 2+ to 14+ years’ robotics experience.
• Strong publication record in top robotics/ML venues.
• Solid robotics fundamentals including SLAM, 3D mapping, ROS.
• Experience with vision-language models and multimodal data.
• Proficiency in PyTorch, TensorFlow, CUDA; coding in C/C++.
• Excellent problem solving and teamwork; strong communication.

Responsibilities

• Conduct state-of-the-art robotics research in areas like TAMP, WAMs, VLA models, VLMs, 3D perception.
• Explore novel techniques and model architectures for data-efficient training.
• Design autonomy architectures to convert high-level tasks to commands.
• Develop real-time video encoders and multi-view processing for scene understanding.
• Scale evaluation pipelines across robot fleets using simulation and real-world tests.
• Collaborate in cross-functional teams; contribute to patents and publications.

Skills

ROS

C/C++

Python

CUDA

3D mapping

SLAM

Vision-language

VLMs

VLA models

Policy architectures

Education

PhD in EECS/Robotics

Tools

PyTorch

TensorFlow

OpenCV

Docker

CUDA

Job description

Lab Summary

The Robot Intelligence Lab at Samsung Research America is a new facility dedicated to advancing the field of robotics through cutting-edge research and development. The lab’s mission is to develop advanced technologies to power intelligent robotic systems capable of manipulation, navigation, and complex reasoning for a variety of high-impact application areas. To achieve this mission, the lab collaborates closely with external entities such as universities, startups, and government labs, as well as with several Samsung Product and Advanced Research labs.

Position Summary

As the Robot Intelligence Lab grows, we will be hiring across multiple career levels including Senior, Staff and Senior Staff. The level at which a candidate is hired will reflect their experience, technical expertise and demonstrated impact.

Regardless of level we are looking to grow the team with Researchers who have solid technical skills and rich academic and/or industry experience in areas of robotics and embodied intelligence. Our ideal candidate explores novel technologies aimed towards generalizing robots to perform tasks in the real world. Samsung’s unique advantage in the consumer electronics market and growing focus on AI and robotics will provide you with exciting technical challenges and a rewarding career experience. By leveraging Samsung’s vast product ecosystem to deliver novel user experiences, your work will define Samsung’s future in robotics and significantly impact real-world users.

We are hiring candidates for multiple groups within the lab (Reasoning, Dexterity, Data Efficiency, and Robot Systems), and hence the responsibilities and required skills for each position will be group dependent.

Position Responsibilities

• Conduct state-of-the-art research to push boundaries of emerging fields of robotics, on topics such as task-and-motion planning (TAMP), world action models (WAMs), vision-language-action (VLA) models, vision language models (VLMs), open-world 3D perception, dexterous manipulation, real2sim2real, whole-body control, and multimodal (vision, tactile, audio, semantic) data fusion
• Work with team to explore novel techniques, device interfaces, and model architectures to train robotic policies effectively with limited available data
• Design autonomy architectures that interpret high-level task instructions and generate low-level task commands
• Enable real-time video encoders with multi-view inputs for robust scene understanding, enable VLMs to reason about general task knowledge, including tool usage, object interactions, and task feasibility assessment, and enable Chain-of-Thought (CoT) task reasoning on VLM for complex, multi-step task execution
• Develop efficient 3D scene graph representation and other 3D semantic/geometric models/solutions
• Scale robot evaluation pipelines across robot fleets with a combination of simulation and real-world testing
• Work within cross-functional, cross-divisional teams and assist in the design, analysis and performance evaluation from concept to completion
• Generate patents and scientific research papers for top-tier publications

Required Skills

• PhD degree in EECS/Robotics or equivalent combination of education, training, and experience
• 2-14+ years’ experience in robotics
• Strong research track record with publications in top-tier robotics, computer vision, or ML venues (e.g., ICRA, RSS, Science Robotics, CVPR, ICCV, ICML, NeurIPS)
• Strong understanding of robotics fundamentals, including locomotion, manipulation, sensor inputs, pose tracking, 3D mapping, SLAM, ROS, and policy architectures particularly for semi-structured and unstructured environments
• Experience with foundation models, vision-language-action (VLA) models, vision language models (VLMs), and agentic architectures
• Solid understanding of computer vision techniques (e.g., object detection, segmentation, tracking) and real-time video tokenizer design and multi-view image processing
• Knowledgeable of tools and processes to monitor model performance and data quality, including model tuning experience
• Familiarity with PyTorch, TensorFlow, C, C++, Java, ROS, and CUDA
• Excellent problem-solving skills and the ability to work independently and as part of a team
• Excellent verbal communication and writing skills to effectively represent the derived results and technical concepts developed in the course of the work

Base Pay Range

$163,600 - $324,500 USD

Additional Information

Disclosure of Trade Secrets

Samsung has a strict policy on trade secrets. In applying to Samsung and progressing through the recruitment process, you must not disclose any trade secrets of a current or previous employer.

Essential Job Functions

This position will be performed in an office setting. The position will require the incumbent to sit and stand at a desk, communicate in person and by telephone, and frequently operate standard office equipment, such as telephones and computers.

Samsung Research America is committed to complying with all Federal, State and local laws related to the employment of qualified individuals with disabilities. If you are an individual with a disability and would like to request a reasonable accommodation as part of the employment selection process, please contact the recruiter or email [e-mail].

Equal Employment Opportunity

At Samsung, we believe that innovation and growth are driven by an inclusive culture and a diverse workforce. We aim to create a global team where everyone belongs and has equal opportunities, inspiring our talent to be their true selves. Together, we are building a better tomorrow for our customers, partners, and communities.

Samsung Research America is committed to employing a diverse workforce, and provide Equal Employment Opportunity for all individuals regardless of race, color, religion, gender, age, national origin, marital status, sexual orientation, gender identity, status as a protected veteran, genetic information, status as a qualified individual with a disability, or any other characteristic protected by law.

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