Research Scientist (Robot Foundation Model)

TL;DR

Research Scientist (Robot Foundation Model): Developing foundation models for general-purpose robots across diverse embodiments with an accent on perception, reasoning, and physical manipulation. Focus on designing VLAs, world models, and scalable training pipelines to enable robust real-world robotic capabilities.

Location: Hybrid, based in Sunnyvale, CA

Salary: $370,000–$419,000 + equity

Company

hirify.global is a leading developer of Embodied AI technology creating hardware-agnostic AI products for autonomous driving and general robotics.

What you will do

• Research model architectures and learning approaches for robot foundation models, including VLAs, WAMs, and omni-modal models.
• Implement and evaluate learning methods such as reinforcement learning, behavioral cloning, and imitation learning.
• Synthesize and curate large-scale video datasets for model training and evaluation.
• Build scalable distributed training pipelines and infrastructure for large-scale models and datasets.
• Collaborate with ML engineers and roboticists to deploy and test policies on physical robotic platforms.
• Communicate research findings internally and contribute to external scientific publications.

Requirements

• Experience in machine learning focusing on vision-language models, video models, or embodied AI.
• Strong research track record with publications in top-tier venues (e.g., ICRA, CoRL, CVPR, NeurIPS, ICML, ICLR).
• Hands-on experience with scalable multi-node training and large datasets.
• Strong coding skills and proficiency with modern machine learning frameworks.
• Ability to translate theoretical research into working systems and deployed capabilities.
• Must be based in or able to work hybrid in Sunnyvale, CA.

Nice to have

• PhD or MS in Computer Science, Machine Learning, Robotics, or Computer Vision.
• Industry experience in applied AI research or embodied AI environments.
• Experience with simulation, policy learning, or real-world robotic platforms.
• Experience working with sequential decision-making systems and large-scale video data.

Culture & Benefits

• Hybrid working policy combining office collaboration with work-from-home flexibility.
• Core working hours that allow you to determine a schedule that works for you and your team.
• Inclusive and diverse work environment that encourages new perspectives.
• Competitive equity package.