Research Scientist (Humanoid Robotics)

• We are looking for a founding senior Research Scientist with a TL growth path within the Research Group at Applied Intuition. Robotics is a core vertical of our physical AI platform alongside autonomous vehicles — early stage, but with the full backing, resources, and infrastructure of a $15B company behind it. Our vision is for robotics to grow into its own vertical, and the person in this role will play a defining part in shaping that trajectory
• Set and drive the research agenda for humanoid robotics, with a focus on dexterous manipulation and relevant frontier research problems
• Conduct original research on world-action foundation models and reinforcement learning, delivering manipulation policies for humanoid robotic systems
• Serve as a founding senior researcher on the humanoid effort, shaping both the technical direction and the growth of the team
• Publish at top-tier venues (CoRL, ICRA, RSS, and similar) alongside other Research Scientists and interns
• Collaborate closely with Research Engineers and product teams to deploy your work into real humanoid platforms and dexterous hands
• Partner with senior researchers Yihan Hu and Wei on cross-cutting problems spanning autonomy and robotics

Benefits

• Health Insurance: Applied covers 100% of the cost and offers medical, dental, vision, and life insurance
• Fitness Stipend: Our wellness program supports your health and fitness goals. We pay for your trainers, gym memberships, massages, and more!
• 401(k) Match: 50% employer matching to help you save money for retirement
• Learning Stipend: We invest in your learning and growth by reimbursing you for educational and training expenses
• Parental leave: 12-week, fully paid parental leave to bond with a newborn child or new adopted or foster child
• Catered lunch, expensed dinner, on-site meals and snacks- PhD in machine learning, computer vision, robotics, or a closely related field
• Strong technical convictions and a clear point of view on where the field is going — and the self-motivation to drive that vision to execution for a team of researchers
• Passion for scalable, real-world robotics and physical AI, not just benchmark performance
• A strong research record in robotics, manipulation, robot learning, or closely related areas, with publications in top-tier conferences or journals such as CoRL, RSS, ICRA, IROS
• 1+ years of industry research experience, or a completed post-doc in a relevant field
• Technical and professional maturity: able to operate independently as a senior IC and set direction for others
• Don’t meet every single requirement? If you’re excited about this role but your past experience doesn’t align perfectly with every qualification in the job description, we encourage you to apply anyway
• Humanoid robotics platforms, dexterous manipulation and multi-fingered hands
• Large-scale RL in robotic simulation, and sim-to-real transfer
• VLA/WAM and post-training for robotics
• Imitation learning from teleoperation or human demonstration data
• Prior Tech Lead or founding-team experience