Research Scientist – PhD New College Grad 2026 - Robotics Research

NVIDIA is at the forefront of the AI and robotics revolution, and our robotics teams are on a mission to build the essential technology that can enable any company to become a robotics company. The Seattle Robotics Lab is passionate about fundamental and applied robotics research across the full robotics stack, including perception, planning, control, reinforcement learning, imitation learning, and simulation. This research strives to transform research paradigms, transfer into NVIDIA’s robotics and simulation products, and build new robotics markets for the world.

The Seattle Robotics Lab has led many influential works that have been presented at top robotics, AI, and computer vision conferences; these works include BayesSim, cuRobo, DeXtreme, DiSECT, Factory, GraspNet, ITPS, MimicGen, RVT, and SHAC. (See our publications page for a complete list.) The work has deeply impacted the research community and NVIDIA products, including Isaac Sim, Isaac Lab, and Isaac Manipulator. Furthermore, SRL collaborates closely with other research and engineering teams to advance and use the Cosmos and GR00T-N foundation models, as well as the Newton physics simulation engine. The team is targeting several grand challenges in robotics and is aiming to achieve never-before-seen capabilities within 2-3 years. We are looking for research scientists to play a pivotal role in these efforts. These scientists must have outstanding research and engineering skills, a proven research track record, strong supporting references, and a team-first approach.

What you will be doing:

• Developing algorithms, models, and methods for robotic manipulation and loco-manipulation, for both industrial and household applications;

• Integrating these methods into real-world robotic manipulation systems, including those consisting of collaborative robot arms, industrial robot arms, mobile manipulators, humanoids, and dexterous hands;

• Contributing to multi-person research projects that require a diverse set of skills across the robotics and machine learning stack;

• Engaging with the academic community through high-impact publications, conferences, workshops, and code releases;

• Collaborating with product managers and engineering teams to transfer your research into NVIDIA products that will have real-world impact;

• Mentoring interns joining NVIDIA during their PhD programs.

What we need to see:

• Completing a PhD in Robotics, Machine Learning, Computer Science, Electrical Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, or a related field (or equivalent experience).

• A strong research track record, with work published in top robotics and AI conferences and journals such as RSS, CoRL, ICRA, IROS, IJRR, T-RO, NeurIPS, ICML, ICLR, CVPR, ICCV, ECCV, and EMNLP.

• Exceptional programming skills in Python, as well as proficiency in modern deep learning frameworks (PyTorch or JAX), robotics frameworks (ROS or ROS2), and physics simulation frameworks (Isaac Sim/Lab or MuJoCo). Familiarity with C++, CUDA, and Warp is a plus.

• Exceptional communication, collaboration, and interpersonal skills, with significant experience working on teams.

• Comfort in working through the complexities of simulation and real-world robotics, including debugging physics simulators and renderers under rapid development; selecting, setting up, maintaining, and enhancing complex robotics hardware; debugging real-world communication systems; and designing robust workflows for model training and evaluation.

The following research areas and applications are of particular interest:

• Bimanual and dexterous manipulation

• Mobile manipulation and humanoid loco-manipulation

• Multisensory perception (e.g., vision, tactile, and force/torque sensing)

• Simulation, sim-to-real, and real-to-sim

• Vision-language-action (VLA) models, including architectural advancements, large-scale training, and test-time reasoning

• Industrial applications, such as bin-picking, kitting, and assembly

The Seattle Robotics Lab is now located in a brand-new office in the vibrant Fremont neighborhood of Seattle.

Your base salary will be determined based on your location, experience, and the pay of employees in similar positions. The base salary range is 168,000 USD - 264,500 USD.Applications for this job will be accepted at least until July 28, 2026.

This posting is for an existing vacancy. 

NVIDIA uses AI tools in its recruiting processes.

NVIDIA is committed to fostering an inclusive work environment and proud to be an equal opportunity employer. As we highly value diversity in our current and future employees, we do not discriminate (including in our hiring and promotion practices) on the basis of race, religion, color, national origin, gender, gender expression, sexual orientation, age, marital status, veteran status, disability status or any other characteristic protected by law.