Robotics Engineer (Simulation, Hardware & Deployment)

Metamorphic; Palo Alto (CA); On-site; USD 175,000 - 250,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Competitive compensation

Strong mentorship and career development

Visa sponsorship

Job summary

Metamorphic in Palo Alto is seeking a Robotics Engineer to bring neuro-aligned models into the physical world. The role encompasses integrating physics simulators, operating teleoperation rigs, and ensuring reliable software for experiments.

Ideal candidates have strong software skills, hands-on robotics experience, and a degree in a relevant field. This position offers competitive compensation and is part of groundbreaking AI research.

Qualifications

• Strong software engineering skills and proficiency in Python.
• Hands-on experience with robotics simulation pipelines.
• Experience with real robot hardware operation and debugging.

Responsibilities

• Integrate and maintain physics simulators for robotics.
• Operate teleoperation rigs for demonstration collection.
• Ensure reliability of software stack and data recording infrastructure.

Skills

Software engineering

Robotics simulation

Python

C++

ROS/ROS 2 stack

Education

Bachelor's degree in Robotics, Computer Science, Mechanical/Electrical Engineering, or related field

Job description

About Metamorphic

Metamorphic is developing new approaches to intelligence by combining machine learning with large‑scale experimental neuroscience, informed by the principles that make the brain efficient, flexible, and robust. We are building foundation models trained on rich, continuous neural data — a high‑resolution digital twin of the brain at a scale never before possible.

Our founding team spans machine learning, neuroscience, and neurotechnology, with prior work including the MICrONS project, Neuropixels, and the Enigma project, as well as foundational scientific contributions in AI, neural computation, and embodied intelligence. Our work sits at the frontier of AI research, and we believe the highest‑impact discoveries will come from researchers and engineers working as a single, tightly collaborative team.

The name Metamorphic reflects our belief that the next advances in intelligence will come from a change in form, beyond scale — from artificial to natural intelligence.

About the Role

A core part of our mission is bringing our neuro‑aligned models into the physical world. We are hiring a robotics engineer to advance this mission. You will own the end‑to‑end loop that takes a policy from simulation onto physical hardware and back again: integrating and maintaining physics simulators, building and operating teleoperation rigs for demonstration collection, bringing up and maintaining real robot platforms, and ensuring our software stack, drivers, calibration pipelines, and data recording infrastructure are reliable enough for both rapid iteration and reproducible experiments.

This role sits at the intersection of robotics engineering, scientific infrastructure, and applied research. You will have substantial autonomy over how our simulation environments, hardware integrations, and teleoperation workflows are designed and evolved as our research scales from single‑arm tabletop manipulation toward bimanual and humanoid platforms.

You'll thrive in this role if you:

• Are excited about working in a fast‑paced, production‑focused research lab that often requires switching between simulation, hardware, and software work in the same day
• Have strong systems and software engineering instincts and can move quickly without sacrificing rigor or safety around physical equipment
• Are comfortable debugging across the full stack — from URDFs and controller gains to ROS nodes, GPU drivers, and Python deployment code
• Enjoy pair programming and deeply collaborative work, including hands‑on time in the lab with researchers and hardware engineers
• Are eager to learn more about machine learning research and neuroscience in a novel scientific domain
• Are enthusiastic to work at an organization that functions as a single, cohesive team pursuing large‑scale AI research
• Have ambitious goals for AI progress and are excited to create the best outcomes over the long term

We offer:

• The chance to work on one of the most scientifically consequential AI projects being pursued today, at the point where it touches the physical world
• A small, world‑class team where your contributions directly shape the science and the company
• Competitive compensation and benefits, along with visa sponsorship
• Strong mentorship and career development

Salary Range

$175,000 - $250,000 USD
Based on experience. We additionally offer a competitive equity package and comprehensive benefits, as well as visa sponsorship for international candidates.

Minimum Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree or equivalent experience in Robotics, Computer Science, Mechanical/Electrical Engineering, or a related field
• Strong software engineering skills and strong working proficiency in Python; comfort with C++ for real‑time and driver‑level work
• Hands‑on experience operating, debugging, and developing robotics simulation pipelines
• Hands‑on experience bringing up and operating real robot hardware including end‑effector integration, calibration, and safety procedures
• Working knowledge of the ROS/ROS 2 stack, including writing and debugging nodes, working with TF, message types, launch files, and integrating sensors (RGB‑D cameras, force/torque sensors, IMUs)
• Experience collecting, recording, and validating robot trajectory data, including handling synchronization across cameras, proprioception, and action streams
• Comfort working closely with ML researchers to deploy and evaluate policies, diagnose sim‑to‑real gaps, and iterate on the integration between models, environment, and hardware

Nice to Have

• Experience designing and operating teleoperation systems
• Familiarity with sim‑to‑real transfer techniques
• Ability to read and debug GPU code when diagnosing performance issues in simulators or inference stacks
• Experience with motion planning, inverse kinematics, and classical control stacks
• Familiarity with containerization and reproducible environments for robotics workloads
• Background in computer vision, particularly multi‑view geometry, camera calibration, and 3D scene representation

We encourage you to apply even if you do not believe you meet every single qualification. If you don't see a role that fits, we encourage you to submit a general application and tell us how you'd like to contribute to our mission.