Lead Robotics AI Engineer (San Francisco)

Samson Rose has partnered with a pioneering robotics startup focused on climate-impact innovation to find a Lead Robotics AI Engineer. This role is an incredible opportunity to join an early, mission-driven team building intelligent, autonomous robots to automate the construction of renewable energy infrastructure. Youll be a key technical leader, driving development across AI systems, perception, planning, and control in complex outdoor environments.

A little about them:

This company is developing physical AI systems that automate the construction of renewable energy infrastructure, dramatically accelerating the global transition to clean energy. Founded by experts from Carnegie Mellon, MIT, and Stanford and backed by top-tier VCs (early investors in Uber, Notion, and Lyft), they are at the forefront of climate-impact robotics innovation.

The person they are looking for should have:

• M.S. or Ph.D. in Robotics, Computer Vision, Machine Learning, or a related field or equivalent experience
• 4+ years of hands-on experience developing and deploying AI solutions in robotics (manipulation, navigation, or similar)
• Deep expertise in computer vision, machine learning, deep learning, or reinforcement learning
• Familiarity with advanced techniques such as VLMs, deep RL, and imitation learning
• Proficiency in Python and modern frameworks such as PyTorch
• Strong analytical, debugging, and problem-solving skills
• Comfortable working autonomously in fast-paced, hands-on environments
• Must be legally authorized to work in the U.S.

You will be responsible for:

• Designing, developing, and deploying state-of-the-art AI systems for robotic manipulation and navigation
• Driving architecture decisions in perception, planning, and control
• Building and optimizing simulation-driven training and validation pipelines
• Working across sensor modalities, including vision, LIDAR, and tactile sensing
• Improving model performance in challenging real-world conditions and on hardware
• Optimizing training and inference for GPU environments
• Collaborating across engineering teams and growing into technical leadership roles

Why this role stands out:

• Tackle some of the hardest problems in robotics with real climate impact
• Be part of a deeply technical founding team and shape key product and company decisions
• Competitive salary and equity, plus full health, vision, and dental benefits
• Build the future of physical AI for a sustainable planet

If this role is of interest to you, please apply with your current resume. Well be in touch to schedule an initial conversation.

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