Research Engineer, Atlas Physics Simulation for RL

  • Boston Dynamics, Inc.
  • Waltham Office (POST)
  • 1w ago
  • Full-Time
  • On-site

Are you passionate about using physics simulation, reinforcement learning and humanoid robots? Curious what you’d be able to accomplish with total access to Boston Dynamics robots? As a Research Engineer working on physics simulation on the Atlas Behavior Learning team, you will join a world-class team of engineers and scientists focused on creating groundbreaking mobile manipulation behaviors for humanoids. 

We are investing in reinforcement learning and physics simulation as a key technology for achieving dexterous and robust whole-body manipulation that can be deployed in real-world environments. 

In this role, you will be responsible for:

  • Develop large scale physics simulation that can efficiently train reinforcement learning agents

  • Evaluate and benchmark different physics simulators, mesh representations and rendering pipelines

  • Scale physics simulations to generate millions of samples per second

  • Build synthetic rendering pipelines to create photorealistic images

  • Extend existing physics simulators to improve simulation quality


We are looking for:

  • MS with 3 years of industry experience or PhD in Computer Science, Machine Learning, Robotics, or a related field

  • Detailed understanding physics simulation including contact solvers and mesh representations

  • Extensive experience with physics simulation including MuJoCo, IsaacSim and Warp

  • Experience with rendering pipelines to create photorealistic synthetic images

  • Strong foundation in Python, C++ and modern numerical frameworks  (e.g., PyTorch and Jax)

  • Experience in algorithm design, debugging, and performance optimization

The ideal candidate has: 

  • A PhD or equivalent research experience in reinforcement learning or robotic manipulation

  • Publications at top tier robotics venues including RSS, CoRL, Science Robotics, ICRA

  • Experience training RL policies in simulation for robots or simulated characters

  • Strong understanding of the advantages and disadvantages of gpu based simulators

  • Understanding of GPU and CPU compute architectures

  • Experience with heterogeneous compute clusters, kubernetes and docker

Why join us? 

  • Direct access to cutting-edge robots and the infrastructure to run large-scale experiments

  • A collaborative, mission-driven team where your ideas have real impact

  • The chance to help define what’s possible in real-world robotics

The pay range for this position is between $155,000.00 to $215,000.00 annually. Base pay will depend on multiple individualized factors including, but not limited to internal equity, job related knowledge, skills and experience. This range represents a good faith estimate of compensation at the time of posting. Boston Dynamics offers a generous Benefits package including medical, dental vision, 401(k), paid time off and a annual bonus structure. Additional details regarding these benefit plans will be provided if an employee receives an offer for employment.

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