Research Intern - Robotics

inspire AG is the leading Swiss competence centre for product innovation and advanced manufacturing. As a strategic partner of ETH Zurich, our mission is to transfer knowledge and technology from research to Swiss machine, electrical and metal industries.

The research group Control and Automation at inspire AG offers the following position in collaboration with Bota Systems, an ETH Zurich spin-off, developing high-precision force-torque sensors that give robots a refined sense of touch. Bota Systems sensors are accelerating Robotic AI research by providing the accurate force feedback essential for imitation learning and RL policies in contact-rich applications.

Our research group works on increasing the efficiency of robotics systems in real-world deployment by enabling quick data collection, calibration, and policy training while ensuring safety and efficiency. For this, we develop novel learning-based control and policy optimization techniques.

We're looking for a skilled Research Engineer to develop and deploy cutting-edge reinforcement learning (RL) and imitation learning (IL) algorithms on real-world robot platforms. The project requires hands-on expertise in RL and control for robotics.

• Develop customized RL and IL pipelines for industrial applications, going from theoretical analysis to implementation and testing on real data
• Develop and maintain the codebase to support various training modules and libraries
• Collaborate with our industrial partner and collect extensive datasets on real hardware
• Deploy policy on real robots in industrial applications

Required experience

• CH/EU/EFTA citizenship or a valid work permit for Switzerland
• Pursuing a master’s degree (university) in robotics, electrical or mechanical engineering, or CS
• Practical knowledge of RL and IL (e.g., behavioral cloning, inverse RL, dealing with distribution shifts) with applications in (industrial) robotics
• Hands-on experience with robotics or other mechatronics systems is a plus
• Excellent coding skills in python, ROS, and RL&IL pipeline experience on simulator and training libraries. Knowledge on C++ is a plus
• Experience with Physics simulators such as ISSAC Newton, or Mujoco
• Good foundation in linear algebra, numerical methods, optimization, and control theory.
• An excellent knowledge (written/oral) of English is a must. Knowledge of German is beneficial

Required people skills

• Highly self-organized and structured way of working and solution orientation
• High motivation and willingness to learn new skills
• High level of teamwork, positive work attitude and creativity
• Willingness to supervise and support student projects

We offer an internship position in our group as part our collaboration with Bota. Through the close cooperation with our project partner, you will quickly establish contacts to industry. In our young team you will work at the forefront of today's knowledge in embodied AI. Please send your full application (cover letter, transcripts, CV, references) with reference “Research Intern - Robotics” to our HR department (hr).

For technical questions, please contact Dr. Efe Balta (efe.balta) and Dr. Muhammad Zakwan (muhammad.zakwan). Please also visit our website inspire , Bota systems and Control Laboratory By submitting application documents, you accept the provisions of the privacy policy of inspire.

Applications received by March 30, 2026 will receive full attention.

Please note that we only accept applications submitted via (hr). Applications sent to other emails or postal services will not be considered.