Robotics Engineer

About Radical AI

Radical AI is replacing an R&D process that currently takes 10+ years and $100 million to produce a single discovery. Our self-driving lab platform combines AI with autonomous robotics to run experiments, analyze results, and iterate—continuously, without human bottlenecks. For industries like aerospace, automotive, defense, energy, manufacturing, semiconductors, and space, that means breakthroughs in weeks instead of years.

The Role

As a Robotics Software Engineer in the Robotics and Automation group at Radical AI, you will design, develop, and deploy the software that enables robots and automated workcells to execute materials research workflows reliably and autonomously. You will own robotic task execution, motion and manipulation software, and reusable control capabilities that can be deployed across laboratory systems.

Your experience and vision will shape both the physical and systematic implementation of lab automation

You will work closely with perception, simulation, systems software, mechatronics, mechanical engineering, and materials science to meet rigorous and sometimes dynamic design requirements at an unprecedented deployment speed.

What You'll Do

• Architect and implement reusable software for robot motion, manipulation, workcell control, and autonomous task execution.
• Develop robust state machines, task sequencing, interlocks, and fault detection and recovery for flexible robotic workcells.
• Integrate robotic arms, grippers, sensors, vision outputs, and lab equipment into coordinated automated workflows.
• Implement motion planning, grasping, calibration, and execution logic for variable sample geometries and changing laboratory workflows.
• Develop interfaces to higher-level orchestration services for scheduling, execution status, commands, and experimental data capture.
• Use simulation and hardware-in-the-loop testing to validate robot behaviors before physical deployment.
• Debug and optimize robotic performance, throughput, reliability, and recoverability on deployed hardware.
• Contribute to architecture, code quality, testing practices, and mentorship across the robotics software stack.

What We're Looking For

Required

• Degree in Robotics, Computer Vision, Electrical Engineering, Computer Science, or a related field
• 4+ years of professional software engineering experience with substantial hands-on robotics or automation development.
• Strong Python and C++ skills
• Experience with ROS/ROS2
• Practical understanding of robot kinematics, motion planning, state machines, and real-time or near-real-time control.
• Experience integrating and debugging physical robots, sensors, actuators, and industrial equipment.
• Ability to work independently in a hands-on, development-oriented environment.
• Strong communication skills and ability to collaborate across engineering and scientific disciplines.

Nice to Have

• Experience with Universal Robots, industrial robot APIs, MoveIt, or other manipulation frameworks.
• Experience with learning-based robotics approaches (RL, IL, VLAs, etc.) and computer vision applied to robotics
• Experience with autonomous mobile manipulation, AMRs, or material handling systems.
• Experience using hardware-in-the-loop environments for validation.
• Experience in laboratory automation, scientific instrumentation, and/or early-stage startups.