Senior Roboticist

The role

You will advance robot capabilities and coordinate execution across the robotics stack. You will translate scientific priorities into robotics programs and mentor researchers and engineers.

What you will do

• Advance useful robotic capabilities.
• Help design and execute the robotics roadmap.
• Connect research to physical systems.
• Recruit and develop robotics talent.
• Solve critical technical problems.
• Establish rigorous evaluation.
• Collaborate across AI and neuroscience.
• Guide robotics hardware and resource decisions.

Required qualifications

• Record of original work and successful delivery on physical robotic systems.
• Deep expertise in one or more areas of robotics.
• Broad working knowledge across perception, robot learning, simulation, motion planning, control, and deployment.
• Demonstrated ability to turn research prototypes into reliable, reproducible robotic capabilities and diagnose failures across software, models, sensing, and hardware.
• Experience recruiting and mentoring strong researchers and engineers, setting technical standards, and coordinating work across specialties.
• Strong grounding in modern AI.
• PhD in robotics, computer science, engineering, or a related field, or equivalent research and technical leadership accomplishments.

Nice to have

• 10+ years of relevant robotics research and engineering experience, including 5+ years leading technical teams or substantial robotics programs.
• Exceptional accomplishments may substitute for a specific number of years.
• An interest in understanding and evaluating ideas from computational neuroscience.
• Prior neuroscience specialization

About the company

Astera Institute is a private foundation supporting ambitious work in science and technology through grants, investments, and in-house research. Its research programs combine the pace and autonomy of a startup with the freedom to pursue difficult scientific questions.