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Rhoda AI

Develops heavy-lifting general-purpose humanoid robots

Staff Robotics System Safety Engineer

Full-Time
$200k - $300k/yr
Expert
Bachelor's, Master's
Mountain View, CA, USA
In Person
AI & Machine LearningRobotics & Autonomous Systems

About the job

Requirements
  • At least 10 years of mass-produced electromechanical product development experience.
  • A Bachelor of Science degree in Robotics, Mechatronics, Electrical Engineering, or Computer Science.
  • Experience with data collection and analysis methodologies, including data acquisition and instrumentation, data conversion and analysis using Python or statistical tools, and data presentation.
  • Proven experience in systems safety engineering, including HARA, DFMEA, FTA, STPA, and safety case development for complex electromechanical systems with a significant robotics aspect.
  • A proven track record of complex safety-critical product development from inception to mass production, including passing through safety certification.
  • Proven experience deriving safety requirements for a robotic system through analysis and experimentation.
  • Proven experience developing test cases with fault injection, instrumenting and executing those test cases, analyzing data, and presenting findings to cross-functional teams to argue for a passing result or a pivot in design or test methodology.
  • Proven experience working in at least one of the three basic disciplines: Electrical Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, or Software Engineering.
Responsibilities
  • Develop safety-related features of the RhodavAI humanoid robot.
  • Derive requirements related to stopping, collision avoidance, collision sensing, motor control, and diagnostics through analysis and/or empirical methods.
  • Define fail-safe, fail-degraded, and fail-operational strategies and the required architectures.
  • Drive requirements from inception through approval, implementation, and verification.
  • Invent, implement, and use custom instrumentation and verification equipment to derive and verify requirements and develop diagnostics strategies.
  • Provide hands-on support to System Integration and Application Engineering teams.
  • Work closely with Mechanical, Electrical, Software, and Applications teams.
Desired Qualifications
  • Certification from TÜV Rheinland or similar in Functional Safety (IEC 61508 or Machinery).
  • Experience in AI safety for Physical AI.
  • In-depth understanding of autonomy sensor methods, including vision, TOF, and laser.
  • In-depth understanding of motor control.
  • In-depth understanding of safety-critical embedded systems electronics, firmware, and software.
  • Significant experience developing, characterizing, or troubleshooting various electric and pneumatic actuators.
  • Experience designing and deploying robotic solutions for industrial manufacturing.
  • Experience with robotics in more than one industry, including surgical, aerospace, automotive, mining, earth-moving, agricultural, home, and commercial service robots.
  • A Master of Science degree in Engineering.

About the company

Rhoda AI is building a two-armed humanoid robot designed as a general-purpose bimanual manipulation platform for industrial use. Its product centers on heavy-lifting and complex manipulation in factory and logistics environments, where many humanoid robots struggle. The robot combines dual arms with software and sensors that enable grasping, coordinating with both hands, and performing tasks that require strength and precision in industrial settings. Rhoda AI differentiates itself by targeting heavy-lift capabilities in robotics, a gap for many competitors, supported by a team with deep robotics and AI expertise and substantial funding. The company aims to bring commercially viable humanoid robots to industrial markets, competing with other players in factory automation and logistics robotics, with the goal of transforming how manual work is automated in manufacturing and related sectors.

Company Size

51-200

Company Stage

Series A

Total Funding

$680M

Headquarters

San Jose, California

Founded

2024

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Simplify's Take

What believers are saying

  • Rhoda raised $450 million in March 2026 at a $1.7 billion valuation.
  • Reuters said investors include Khosla Ventures, Temasek, Mayfield, Premji Invest, and Capricorn.
  • Rhoda says it already works with industrial partners across manufacturing and logistics.

What critics are saying

  • Tesla and Figure AI already dominate humanoid attention, hiring, and customer mindshare.
  • Internet-video training lacks guaranteed factory reliability; one failed pilot can stall deployments in 2026.
  • Without shipping revenue by 2027, Rhoda burns capital before customers trust its platform.

What makes Rhoda AI unique

  • Rhoda trains robots on millions of internet videos, not scarce teleoperation demos.
  • Jagdeep Singh, Gordon Wetzstein, and Vincent Clerc bring rare robotics, optics, and product depth.
  • Rhoda targets industrial heavy-lifting bimanual work, where dexterity and payload matter most.

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Bloomberg
Mar 10th, 2026
AI robotics startup Rhoda valued at $1.7B after raising $450M to train robots using online videos

Rhoda AI, a startup developing artificial intelligence models trained on publicly available internet videos to direct robots in industrial tasks, has raised $450 million in funding led by Premji Invest. The round values the company at $1.7 billion post-money. The startup's AI model learns from millions of online videos to teach robots to perform various industrial tasks, including in unfamiliar conditions. The approach represents a novel data source for robotics training, aiming to expand robots' capabilities beyond controlled environments.

Forbes
Oct 15th, 2025
These Well-Funded AI Startups Are Building Humanoid Robots In Stealth

Flush with hundreds of millions of dollars in new funding, Rhoda AI and Genesis AI are developing humanoids they hope can go head-to-head with robots from Figure AI and Tesla.