Senior Research Scientist / Engineer: Dynamics, Planning & Control

Holiday Robotics Inc.; Mountain View (CA); Hybrid; USD 200,000 - 300,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Relocation stipend

Free daily meals

Employer-paid health plan

401(k) retirement plan

Competitive equity

Job summary

Holiday Robotics Research Inc. is seeking a Senior Research Scientist/Engineer to lead dynamics, planning, and control for FRIDAY, the mobile humanoid robot.

You will steer real-time planning, whole-body manipulation, and integration with perception to enable safe navigation in dynamic settings. You will design experiments to identify rigid-body and actuator dynamics, iteratively improve models, and collaborate across hardware, perception, learning, and simulation teams to close the sim-to-real

Qualifications

• BS/MS/PhD in Robotics, ME, EE, CS or related field.
• 7+ years robotics experience centered on dynamics, planning, or control.
• Strong fundamentals in rigid-body mechanics, kinematics, Jacobians, and state estimation.
• Experience turning research into production-quality software on real robots.

Responsibilities

• Lead architecture of real-time planning and control stack for whole-body mobile manipulation.
• Integrate perception and state estimation for collision avoidance and safe navigation.
• Design system identification experiments to characterize dynamics and latency.
• Collaborate with hardware, perception, learning, and simulation researchers; deploy algorithms on FRIDAY.

Skills

Dynamics & Control

Motion Planning

Optimization

State Estimation

Model Predictive Control

Education

BS/MS/PhD in Robotics, ME, EE, CS

Tools

GCS

RRT*

PRM

TrajOpt

MPC

MPPI

Job description

Senior Research Scientist / Engineer: Dynamics, Planning & Control

About the Role

Holiday Robotics Research Inc. is the U.S. subsidiary of Holiday Robotics, a leading humanoid robotics company based in South Korea. We build the entire robotics stack in-house—from hardware and firmware to planning, control, simulation, and end-user software—with the goal of freeing people from tedious, dangerous, and repetitive tasks.

We are looking for a Senior Research Scientist / Engineer to lead the development of dynamics, planning, and control algorithms for FRIDAY, our mobile humanoid robot. You will build and deploy dynamics, planning and control algorithms that enable FRIDAY to navigate complex environments, coordinate whole-body motion, and perform dexterous, contact-rich manipulation with multi-fingered hands.

Key Areas

Whole-body control Motion planning Trajectory optimization Model predictive control System identification Contact-rich manipulation Sim-to-Real

What You'll Do

• Set technical direction and own the architecture of the real-time planning and control stack for whole-body mobile manipulation, including motion planning, trajectory optimization, predictive control, and contact-rich bimanual manipulation with multi-fingered hands.
• Integrate perception and state estimation for collision avoidance, online re-planning, safe navigation, and robust behavior in dynamic environments.
• Design and execute system identification experiments to characterize rigid-body dynamics, actuator dynamics, friction, contact dynamics, and system latency, then use the identified models to improve control performance and simulation fidelity.
• Collaborate with hardware, firmware, perception, robot learning, and simulation researchers and engineers to validate digital twins and reduce the sim-to-real gap by iterating between simulation and the physical robot. Work hands-on with FRIDAY to deploy and debug algorithms.

Required Qualifications

• BS, MS, or Ph.D. in Robotics, Mechanical Engineering, Electrical Engineering, Computer Science, or a closely related field.
• 7+ years of robotics experience, or 5+ years with an advanced degree, focused on dynamics, planning, or control for physical robots such as manipulators, mobile platforms, humanoids, quadrupeds, or autonomous vehicles.
• Strong fundamentals in rigid-body mechanics, kinematics, Jacobians, screw/wrench formulations, control theory, optimization, and state estimation.
• Deep expertise in at least one of system identification, motion planning, trajectory optimization, or predictive control, with strong working knowledge across the others; familiarity with methods such as GCS, RRT*, PRM, TrajOpt, MPC, or MPPI.
• Ability to turn research into production-quality software and deploy, tune, and debug it reliably on real robotic hardware.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience with whole-body or model predictive control on humanoid, quadrupedal, or mobile-manipulation platforms, including bimanual coordination and force-aware control.
• Hands-on experience integrating tactile sensors into state estimation, planning, or control pipelines for contact-rich manipulation.
• Experience with motion planning, trajectory optimization, or control for non-holonomic mobile bases.
• Experience controlling low-gear-ratio, BLDC-based quasi-direct-drive (QDD) actuators or hydrostatic actuation systems.
• Experience validating physical models, digital twins, or long-horizon behaviors across simulation and real-world environments.
• Familiarity with perception-aware planning, state estimation, or learning-based methods—including reinforcement learning, imitation learning, or generative models—for control and manipulation.
• Compensation: $200,000–$300,000 USD base salary + competitive equity. Final compensation is based on experience and technical impact.
• Medical, dental & vision: 100% employer-paid coverage for employees and partial coverage for dependents. Medical coverage is provided through a full-network PPO plan.
• 401(k): Employer-sponsored retirement plan.
• Relocation: Stipend for out-of-state candidates.
• Meals: Free daily meals.

Holiday Robotics Research Inc. is an equal opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, national origin, ancestry, age, disability, medical condition, genetic information, marital status, military or veteran status, or any other characteristic protected by applicable law.