Machine Learning Engineer, Robotics

Position: Staff Machine Learning Engineer, Robotics
At Johnson & Johnson, we believe health is everything. Our strength in healthcare innovation empowers us to build a world where complex diseases are prevented, treated, and cured, where treatments are smarter and less invasive, and solutions are personal. Through our expertise in Innovative Medicine and Med Tech, we are uniquely positioned to innovate across the full spectrum of healthcare solutions today to deliver the breakthroughs of tomorrow, and profoundly impact health for humanity.

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Job Function:

R&D Product Development

Job Sub Function:

Robotics

Job Category:

Scientific/Technology

All Job Posting Locations:

Santa Clara, California, United States of America

About Med Tech

Fueled by innovation at the intersection of biology and technology, we’re developing the next generation of smarter, less invasive, more personalized treatments.

Your unique talents will help patients on their journey to wellness.

Learn more at

We are searching for the best talent for Staff Machine Learning Engineer, Robotics to be located in Santa Clara, CA.

Johnson & Johnson Med Tech is inventing the future of robotic surgery with OTTAVA. This next-generation soft-tissue surgical robot will leverage advancements in AI/ML, connect health data inside and beyond the operating room, and deliver clinical innovations for patients and care teams.

Purpose:

We are looking for a highly skilled and innovative Staff Machine Learning Engineer to apply the latest advances in learning-based manipulation to improve the performance and safety of surgical robotics. In this hands‑on role you will rapidly design models, implement algorithms, and bring ML‑trained manipulation behaviors from research to real‑world robotic hardware in unstructured environments. As a senior member of the team, you will be responsible for mentoring engineers and elevating the team's overall technical capabilities.

You will be responsible for

• Develop and implement ML algorithms for surgical robotic manipulation

• Build pipelines for data collection, training, testing and deployment of ML models

• Leverage simulation for prototyping, training, and transfer to robot hardware

• Define and evaluate performance metrics for surgical tasks and implement rigorous testing protocols

• Collaborate with software and controls teams to deploy learned policies and ensure safe and reliable execution

• Optimize models for onboard real‑time performance on robotic hardware

• Stay current with the latest robotics and AI research, mentor team members, and drive innovation

Qualifications / Requirements:

• PhD/MS in Machine Learning, Computer Science, Robotics, or related field andyears of work experience

• 3+ years of hands‑on experience implementing and deploying ML models for robotic manipulation and experience with large multimodal ML models

• Proven ability to take ML models from research prototype to production deployment

• Mastery of Python for prototyping and C++ for performant, deployable code

• Strong proficiency in deep learning frameworks (e.g., PyTorch, Tensor Flow)

• Strong experience with simulation platforms (e.g., Mu Jo Co , Isaac Sim, PyBullet) and sim‑to‑real transfer

• Understanding of robot kinematics, dynamics, sensing, and control

• Ability to travel up to 5%, domestic and international

• Ability to work in a regulated environment in compliance with ISOand 21 CFR 820

Johnson & Johnson is an Equal Opportunity Employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, age, national origin, disability, protected veteran status or other characteristics protected by federal, state or local law. We actively seek qualified candidates who are protected veterans and individuals with disabilities as defined under VEVRAA and Section 503 of the Rehabilitation Act.

Johnson & Johnson is committed to providing an interview process that is inclusive of our applicants’ needs. If you are an individual with a disability and would like to request an accommodation, external applicants please contact us via  , internal employees contact AskGS to be directed to your accommodation resource.

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