Robotics Research Lead

Company Description

Onyx is a robotics AI controls and simulation company building the tooling and infrastructure to push hardware performance to its limits with learning. We are assembling a team of researchers like Google Deepmind/Boston Dynamics, but extending our research into tools that benefit all of the world's hardware controls and simulation challenges. Concretely, we will push the frontier of research by building hardware with legs, wheels, and propellers, and then convert our R&D into software releases of tooling that any company can use to advance their own controls/simulation performance.

If you love robotics, controls, and research but wish you could see meaningful real-world impact every day of work, this is a team for you. We are bringing together a tight-knit team of people just like us to build a new controls stack for humanity's most ambitious and meaningful physical technologies.

Role Description

You will be one of the first hires as a founding Robotics Research Lead, joining our team on-site in Boston, MA. This is an opportunity to become a leader in robotics, whether that's becoming a leading researcher in this field, a team leader of a 100-person research organization, or both over time. What matters most is that you care about our vision and want to drive impact with a team of like-minded people.

On a day-to-day basis, your primary focus will be coding and researching robotics AI controls and simulation. We will be building in public, publishing the research you're leading, and making a name for ourselves as a breakout team in robotics. Our whole team will also speak with controls researchers in robotics, automotive, aerospace/space, energy, manufacturing, among other industries, who are using our tools to learn what research/code we should develop next.

It's going to be a lot of fun working alongside the most talented and motivated people in our space. As the founder and CEO, I want you to join us in building a team that becomes the world's pillar of robotics controls.

In This Role You Will:

• Research and develop state-of-the-art algorithms in robotics for AI controls and simulation, including: neural network dynamics modeling and system identification, sim-to-real and parallel simulation, reinforcement learning, diffusion and flow matching policies, MPC/MPPI, and embedded real-time control using AI models.
• Turn our research into user-facing tooling for controls/simulation.
• Develop backend infrastructure for controls/hardware data and AI model training.
• Collaborate with external controls engineering teams who are using our tooling for a variety of real-world applications.
• Design and engineer exciting research demos/papers using our tooling and custom-built hardware to publicly show the world what Onyx is capable of.
• Be a part of shaping our team and bringing together talented people to work alongside.

What We Hope You'll Bring:

• Strong demonstrated background in robotics research, controls, and simulation.
• PhD or Masters degree level experience, though priority is on the quality of prior work versus degree.
• Experience in training AI models, interest in AI training tooling/infrastructure.
• Experience in control theory, dynamics modeling, system identification, sim-to-real, simulation, model-based control, and reinforcement learning.
• General knowledge/curiosity of hardware systems and controls beyond robotics.
• Friendliness - both within a team and interest in making friends with people in controls.
• Initiative - ready to lead/own core technology, make decisions, and learn new skills quickly.

Requirements:

• You are able to work in-person in Boston, MA, USA as a primary workplace. Any of us may work from home as needed, but in the interest of building a tight-knit cohesive team, we will primarily be working in-person together!