Principal Research Scientist (Embodied AI)

TL;DR

Principal Research Scientist (Robot Foundation Model): Developing general-purpose foundation models for robots across diverse embodiments with an accent on vision-language-action models and scalable training. Focus on building data flywheels, designing model architectures, and deploying robust policies on real-world physical platforms.

Location: Hybrid, based in Sunnyvale, CA

Salary: $407,000 – $512,000

Company

hirify.global is a leading developer of Embodied AI technology creating mapless, hardware-agnostic autonomy for the automotive industry.

What you will do

• Lead research on architectures, data, and learning approaches for robot foundation models.
• Design and evaluate models including VLAs, WAMs, and omni-modal architectures.
• Develop learning strategies such as reinforcement learning and behavioral cloning.
• Curate and filter large-scale video datasets for model training and evaluation.
• Build scalable distributed training pipelines for large-scale models.
• Collaborate with roboticists and hardware teams to deploy research on real robots.

Requirements

• Deep experience in ML, specifically vision-language models, robot policies, or Embodied AI.
• Proven track record of scalable training with multi-node systems and large datasets.
• Strong research record with publications in venues like ICRA, CoRL, CVPR, or NeurIPS.
• Advanced coding skills and proficiency with modern ML frameworks.
• Must be based in or be able to work from Sunnyvale, CA (hybrid)

Nice to have

• PhD in Computer Science, Machine Learning, Robotics, or a related field.
• 5+ years of industry experience.
• Experience with simulation or policy learning for real robots.
• Experience mentoring researchers or leading technical workstreams.

Culture & Benefits

• Hybrid working policy combining office collaboration with home flexibility.
• Competitive equity package.
• Core working hours to allow for flexible scheduling.
• Inclusive work environment valuing diversity and new perspectives.