Simulation Engineer - Robotics

Protingent; Bellevue (WA); On-site; USD 96,000 - 158,000; Full time

Job summary

Protingent Staffing seeks a Simulation Engineer in Bellevue, WA for a contract role. You will build and scale a simulation engine on NVIDIA Isaac Sim, integrate with the full production software stack, and develop sensor models for cameras, LiDAR, and IMU.

Large-scale AWS pipelines will run thousands of scenarios in parallel to maximize regression coverage. You will own evaluation pipelines, optimize performance, and ensure sim-to-real transfer of behaviors learned in simulation.

Qualifications

• 3+ years of software engineering experience (SDE II) or 5+ years (SDE III).
• Proficiency in Python and/or C++.
• Hands-on experience with NVIDIA Isaac Sim, Isaac Lab, or comparable robotics simulation frameworks.
• Strong working knowledge of ROS2 - robot message types, transforms (TF2), sensor topics, and launch systems.
• Experience building and operating distributed pipelines at scale on AWS (EC2, Batch, S3) - running thousands of parallel jobs.
• Experience integrating simulation or test frameworks into CI/CD pipelines.
• Strong understanding of physics simulation, sensor modelling, and robotics fundamentals.
• Experience with performance profiling and optimization - GPU utilization, memory, and throughput benchmarking.
• Experience with containerization (Docker) for reproducible simulation environments.

Responsibilities

• Build and scale the simulation engine on top of NVIDIA Isaac Sim - integrating the robot's full production software stack with no code changes between simulation and real-world deployment.
• Develop sensor simulation models (cameras, LiDAR, IMU) that match real-world noise profiles, latency, and field-of-view specifications.
• Build large-scale scenario execution pipelines on AWS (EC2, Batch, S3) - running thousands of scenarios in parallel to maximize regression coverage.
• Own evaluation pipelines that capture sensor and mission data, compute automated metrics (trajectory accuracy, collision detection, ODD validation, success/failure rates), and integrate into CI/CD.
• Improve simulator performance and real-time factor - ensuring simulation runs faster than real-time without trading accuracy.
• Work with robot software, autonomy, and science teams to validate that behavior learned in simulation transfers directly to the real world.
• Diagnose and close sim-to-real gaps in physics, sensor fidelity, and robot behavior.

Skills

Software engineering

Distributed pipelines

CI/CD

Robotics fundamentals

Tools

Python

C++

NVIDIA Isaac Sim / Isaac Lab

ROS2

AWS (EC2, Batch, S3)

Docker

Job description

Position Title: Simulation Engineer

Position Description: Protingent Staffing has an exciting contract opportunity for a Simulation Engineer with our client in Bellevue, WA

Job Responsibilities

• Build and scale the simulation engine on top of NVIDIA Isaac Sim - integrating the robot's full production software stack with no code changes between simulation and real-world deployment.
• Develop sensor simulation models (cameras, LiDAR, IMU) that match real-world noise profiles, latency, and field-of-view specifications.
• Build large-scale scenario execution pipelines on AWS (EC2, Batch, S3) - running thousands of scenarios in parallel to maximize regression coverage.
• Own evaluation pipelines that capture sensor and mission data, compute automated metrics (trajectory accuracy, collision detection, ODD validation, success/failure rates), and integrate into CI/CD.
• Improve simulator performance and real-time factor - ensuring simulation runs faster than real-time without trading accuracy.
• Work with robot software, autonomy, and science teams to validate that behavior learned in simulation transfers directly to the real world.
• Diagnose and close sim-to-real gaps in physics, sensor fidelity, and robot behavior.

Job Qualifications

• 3+ years of software engineering experience (SDE II) or 5+ years (SDE III).
• Proficiency in Python and/or C++.
• Hands-on experience with NVIDIA Isaac Sim, Isaac Lab, or comparable robotics simulation frameworks.
• Strong working knowledge of ROS2 - robot message types, transforms (TF2), sensor topics, and launch systems.
• Experience building and operating distributed pipelines at scale on AWS (EC2, Batch, S3) - running thousands of parallel jobs.
• Experience integrating simulation or test frameworks into CI/CD pipelines.
• Strong understanding of physics simulation, sensor modelling, and robotics fundamentals.
• Experience with performance profiling and optimization - GPU utilization, memory, and throughput benchmarking.
• Experience with containerization (Docker) for reproducible simulation environments.

Preferred Job Qualifications

• Experience with sim-to-real transfer techniques and domain randomization.
• Familiarity with ML/AI pipelines - how synthetic simulation data is generated, labelled, and consumed for robot model training (reinforcement learning, imitation learning, or perception models).
• Experience with real-time factor optimization and GPU-accelerated simulation at scale.
• Knowledge of robot autonomy stacks - path planning, perception, or control systems.
• Familiarity with USD (Universal Scene Descriptor) format for loading simulation environments.
• Experience building regression testing frameworks for robotics or autonomous systems.
• Background in synthetic data generation and domain randomization for ML training.

Job Details

• Job Type: Contract
• Location: Bellevue, WA
• Pay Rate: $70-$115/hr
• Must be authorized to work in the U.S. for any employer.

About Protingent

Protingent is an award-winning provider of top-tier Engineering and IT talent, trusted by companies at the forefront of innovation—from Software and Aerospace to AI, Clean Tech, Medical Devices, and Connected Technologies. We're passionate about connecting exceptional talent with meaningful opportunities and helping our clients build the future.