# Research Engineer / Research Scientist — Robotics & Physical AI - Company: [Clera]() - Location: San Francisco - Team: Engineering - Employment type: Full Time - Salary: $100K – $300K - Posted: August 26, 2026 ## Job description ### About the Role This role sits at the intersection of research and engineering on a small, collaborative team building AI-driven systems that help robots learn, reason, and operate in the physical world. You'll work across learning algorithms, simulation, and hardware — pushing robot capabilities from simulation into real-world deployment and shaping how robots perceive, plan, and act. ### What You'll Do * Develop learning systems for robots, including policies, world models, and vision-language-action models. * Build and maintain simulation environments and evaluation frameworks for robotic tasks. * Apply and advance computer vision and perception algorithms for autonomous robots. * Construct pipelines connecting simulation and real-world robot deployment (real-to-sim and sim-to-real). * Work with robot hardware, sensors, actuators, and embedded systems to prototype and test capabilities. * Train and evaluate reinforcement-learning and imitation-learning systems for manipulation, locomotion, or mobile platforms. * Integrate and experiment with robot platforms to validate algorithms in the physical world. * Create tools and infrastructure that accelerate robotics research and development. * Collaborate with external robotics companies and research labs on technical problems. ### What We're Looking For * Any experience level welcome — new graduates through senior researchers and engineers are encouraged to apply. * Strong software skills in **C++** and **Python**. * Hands-on experience with **deep learning, reinforcement learning, and computer vision**. * Experience developing and maintaining robotics simulation environments (e.g., Isaac Lab, MuJoCo, MJX, Genesis) and real-to-sim/sim-to-real workflows. * Practical experience with robot hardware, sensors, actuators, CAD/Blender, and embedded systems. * Familiarity with modern ML tools — LLMs, Transformers, multimodal AI, diffusion models, or AI agents — is a plus. * Comfortable moving fluidly between research, engineering, experimentation, and product development. * Must be authorized to work in the US; visa sponsorship is not available. ### Compensation & Benefits Salary range: **$100,000 – $300,000 USD annually**, depending on experience. Equity participation is expected at this stage. Visa sponsorship is not available. ### Location On-site in **San Francisco, CA**. This role is not eligible for remote work. ## Apply [Apply on Clera]() Canonical job page: