Research Scientist, Robotics Research - PhD College Grad

Overview

NVIDIA’s Seattle Robotics Lab leads fundamental and applied robotics research, covering perception, planning, control, reinforcement learning, and simulation. The lab’s work has appeared at top conferences and informs NVIDIA products such as Isaac Sim, Isaac Lab, and Isaac Manipulator, while collaborating on foundation models and the Newton physics engine. The team targets grand challenges in robotics, aiming for breakthroughs in the next 2–3 years.

We are looking for research scientists with outstanding research, engineering, and team‑first skills to contribute to these efforts.

• Developing algorithms, models, and methods for robotic manipulation and loco‑manipulation for industrial and household applications;
• Integrating these methods into real‑world robotic manipulation systems, including collaborative robot arms, industrial robot arms, mobile manipulators, humanoids, and dexterous hands;
• Contributing to multi‑person research projects that require a diverse set of skills across the robotics and machine learning stack;
• Engaging with the academic community through high‑impact publications, conferences, workshops, and code releases;
• Collaborating with product managers and engineering teams to transfer your research into NVIDIA products that will have real‑world impact;
• Mentoring interns joining NVIDIA during their PhD programs.

• Completion of a PhD in Robotics, Machine Learning, Computer Science, Electrical Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, or a related field (or equivalent experience).
• A strong research track record, with work published in top robotics and AI conferences and journals such as RSS, CoRL, ICRA, IROS, IJRR, T‑RO, NeurIPS, ICML, ICLR, CVPR, ICCV, ECCV, and EMNLP.
• Exceptional programming skills in Python, as well as proficiency in modern deep learning frameworks (PyTorch or JAX), robotics frameworks (ROS or ROS2), and physics simulation frameworks (Isaac Sim/Lab or Mu Jo Co ). Familiarity with C++, CUDA, and Warp is a plus.
• Exceptional communication, collaboration, and interpersonal skills, with significant experience working on teams.
• Comfort in working through the complexities of simulation and real‑world robotics, including debugging physics simulators and renderers, selecting and setting up complex robotics hardware, debugging real‑world communication systems, and designing robust workflows for model training and evaluation.

• Bimanual and dexterous manipulation
• Mobile manipulation and humanoid loco‑manipulation
• Multisensory perception (vision, tactile, and force/torque sensing)
• Simulation, sim‑to‑real, and real‑to‑sim
• Vision‑language‑action (VLA) models, including architectural advancements, large‑scale training, and test‑time reasoning
• Industrial applications such as bin‑picking, kitting, and assembly

Seattle, Washington (currently near the University of Washington; moving to Fremont in 2026). Base salary range: 168,000

USD–264,500

USD, plus equity and benefits.

Applications accepted until January
182026.

NVIDIA is committed to fostering a diverse work environment and prides itself as an equal‑opportunity employer. We do not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, color, national origin, gender, gender expression, sexual orientation, age, marital status, veteran status, disability status, or any other characteristic protected by law.