Founding Robotics ML Engineer

About UCR

UCR (Under Control Robotics) builds multipurpose robots to support human workers in the world's toughest jobs—turning dangerous work from a necessity into a choice. Our work demands reliability, robustness, and readiness for the unexpected—on time, every time. We're assembling a mission-driven team focused on delivering real impact in heavy industry, from construction and mining to energy. If you're driven to build rugged, reliable products that solve real-world problems, we'd love to talk.

Position Overview

At UCR, building is a team sport. As a founding engineer, you'll take ownership and lead the development of advanced machine learning and AI systems powering multipurpose humanoid robots in the real world. You'll design, implement, and optimize learning algorithms that enable robots to move fluidly across diverse environments while performing complex manipulation tasks.

Responsibilities

• Create and optimize learning pipelines for training locomotion policies that generalize across environments
• Develop and implement machine learning models for robot perception, decision-making, and motion planning
• Create and optimize computer vision systems for environmental awareness and object recognition
• Collaborate with the hardware team to integrate learning systems with the physical platforms
• Design simulation environments for training and testing learning algorithms
• Collect, process, and analyze field data to improve learning systems continuously
• Develop metrics and benchmarks to evaluate robot learning performance
• Stay current with the latest research and innovations in robotics and machine learning

Requirements

• Master's or PhD in Robotics, Computer Science, Machine Learning, or related field
• 3+ years of experience developing machine learning applications for robotics systems
• Strong programming skills in Python, C++, and relevant ML frameworks (TensorFlow, PyTorch)
• Experience with reinforcement learning, computer vision, and motion planning algorithms
• Familiarity with ROS (Robot Operating System) or similar robotics frameworks
• Knowledge of control systems and robot kinematics
• Strong mathematical background in linear algebra, calculus, and statistics
• Experience with simulation tools for robotics (Gazebo, MuJoCo, Isaac Sim, etc.)
• Proven track record of implementing ML solutions in robotics applications
• Experience with legged robot locomotion and dynamic stability control

Nice to Have

• Experience with humanoid robots or complex multi-joint robotic systems
• Knowledge of model predictive control (MPC) for locomotion
• Familiarity with trajectory optimization for legged robots
• Knowledge of industrial environments (construction, energy, mining, or manufacturing)
• Understanding of safety considerations for learning-based robotic systems
• Experience with edge computing and deploying ML models on embedded systems
• Familiarity with human-robot interaction paradigms
• Background in imitation learning or learning from demonstration
• Experience with SLAM (Simultaneous Localization and Mapping) techniques
• Publications in relevant conferences (ICRA, IROS, NeurIPS, etc.)