Robotics Planning & Control Scientist – Mobile & Manipulation

Holiday Robotics; Mountain View (CA); On-site; USD 200,000 - 300,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Relocation stipend

Free daily meals

Competitive equity

Job summary

Holiday Robotics is seeking a Research Scientist/Engineer in Mountain View, CA to advance motion planning, trajectory optimization, and navigation for Friday, our mobile humanoid robot.

You will design real-time algorithms, validate them in simulation, and deploy on hardware, collaborating with perception, control, ML, and firmware teams to meet physical constraints and safety requirements.

Qualifications

• MS or PhD in Robotics or closely related field.
• 7+ years in robotics focusing on motion planning and control for mobile platforms or manipulators.
• Strong knowledge of planning algorithms (GCS, RRT*, PRM) and trajectory optimization (TrajOpt) and MPPI.
• Strong optimization and state estimation with rigorous mathematical grounding.
• Experience with AI-assisted coding to accelerate real-robot deployment.

Responsibilities

• Design real-time motion planning and collision avoidance for Friday.
• Develop trajectory optimization and predictive control frameworks (e.g., MPC).
• Coordinate mobile-base navigation with upper-body manipulation for whole-body motion.
• Validate algorithms in simulator and deploy on hardware with cross-team collaboration.

Skills

Motion planning

Trajectory optimization

Model Predictive Control

Robotics programming

AI-assisted coding

Education

MS/PhD in Robotics or related field

Tools

GCS

RRT*

PRM

TrajOpt

MPPI

Job description

Holiday Robotics is seeking a Research Scientist/Engineer in Mountain View, CA to advance motion planning, trajectory optimization, and navigation for Friday, our mobile humanoid robot.

You will design real-time algorithms, validate them in simulation, and deploy on hardware, collaborating with perception, control, ML, and firmware teams to meet physical constraints and safety requirements.