Senior Robotics Research Engineer, Robotics and AI for Drug Discovery
Originally posted 30 October 2026 by the employer. Relisted by the employer on 31 October 2026.
About the role
This role develops fundamental robotics technology and builds real-world physical AI systems to bring automation and autonomy to molecular discovery, manufacturing, testing, and validation. The position utilizes platforms including NVIDIA Isaac Sim, Isaac Lab, Matterix, and Newton within wet lab workflows.
What you'll do
- Build digital twins of robots, laboratory environments, and scientific procedures using NVIDIA Isaac Sim, Isaac Lab, and Matterix.
- Simulate physics for robots, articulated rigid bodies, deformable objects, granular media, and fluids using NVIDIA Newton.
- Develop perception pipelines for object detection, pose estimation, and tracking using multisensory inputs (RGB, depth, force/torque, tactile) and foundation models.
- Translate experimental protocols into physical procedures and collision-free trajectories using VLMs and task and motion planning pipelines.
- Train robots on contact-rich manipulation tasks using imitation learning, reinforcement learning, and high-performance control.
- Build and integrate real-world automated systems into biological experiment workflows, co-authoring technological publications for scientific journals and conferences.
What you'll need
- PhD in Robotics, Machine Learning, Computer Science, Electrical Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, or a related field (or equivalent experience).
- At least 3 years of research and engineering experience post-PhD.
- Exceptional programming skills in Python and fluency with modern deep learning frameworks such as PyTorch and JAX, including training models on GPU clusters.
- Experience with robotics frameworks such as ROS2 and physics simulation frameworks including Isaac Sim, Isaac Lab, and MuJoCo.
- Practical experience with robotics hardware setup, physics simulator debugging, communication systems debugging (latency, bandwidth, race conditions), and standard software engineering practices (unit tests, version control, CI/CD).
Nice to have
- 5+ years of post-PhD research and engineering experience.
- Familiarity with C++, CUDA, and Warp.
- Direct experience in scientific and laboratory automation.
- Specialized expertise in bimanual manipulation, mobile manipulation, humanoid loco-manipulation, sim-to-real/real-to-sim, robotics foundation models, or grasp planning.
Skills: AI, robotics, Isaac Sim, Isaac Lab, Matterix, Newton
More semiconductor jobs: NVIDIA jobs · California jobs
This role has been open 205 days — well above the 66-day median for Infrastructure/Platform Software roles.
Infrastructure/Platform Software · AI ML Hardware
|
Open roles in category
111
|
Median days open
66 d
|
Category median salary (all employers)
$201k
|
See the full market breakdown ▾Category comparison, skills in demand, and who else is hiring
| Metric | NVIDIA | All employers we track in this specialty (111 roles · 30 employers) |
|---|---|---|
| Open roles in this specialty | 19 | 111 |
| Open roles in the wider Software, Firmware & Systems family | 1117 | 6360 · 144 employers |
| Median days open | 68 d | 66 d (+2 d vs this employer) |
| Median salary (USD postings) | — | $201k |
Skills observed across this category: AI, robotics, Isaac Sim, Isaac Lab, Matterix, Newton
Who's hiring in this category
- Qualcomm · 22 open roles · median 53 d
- NVIDIA (this employer) · 17 open roles · median 66 d
- Graphcore · 8 open roles · median 127 d
- Intel Corporation · 7 open roles · median 30 d
- AMD · 6 open roles · median 33 d
- Micron Technology · 6 open roles · median 54 d
How we counted: 111 open Infrastructure/Platform Software (AI ML Hardware) roles from 30 employers tracked in the SemiconductorJobs index, counted 31 Oct 2026. Specialty figures count only roles carrying this exact specialty label, so an employer's related work in neighbouring specialties is not included there — it is counted in the wider Software, Firmware & Systems family row. Figures refresh nightly.