Research Scientist / Engineer - Robot Learning Data

LocationPalo AltoEmployment TypeFull timeDepartmentResearchOverviewApplicationAt Rhoda AI, we’re building the next generation of generalist intelligent robots. We own the full robotics stack from high-performance hardware and robot systems to the infrastructure and state-of-the-art foundation world models that control our robots. Our robots are designed to be generalists capable of operating in complex, real-world environments and handling long-tail edge cases, made possibly by our cutting edge research and end-to-end system design. We've raised over $400M and are investing aggressively in model research, infrastructure, hardware development, and manufacturing scale-up to make generalist robotics a reality.We're looking for a Research Scientist or Research Engineer to own the strategy and systems for collecting, curating, and scaling high-quality robot learning data. This role sits at the intersection of robotics, data collection, and research — your work directly determines the diversity and quality of the demonstrations our models train on.What You'll DoDesign and implement teleoperation and demonstration collection systems for high-quality robot learning dataDevelop data quality metrics, curation pipelines, and filtering strategies specific to robotic interaction dataResearch methods to augment real robot data with synthetic, simulated, or cross-embodiment sourcesIdentify and source external robotic datasets to expand training diversity across platforms and tasksBuild tooling for researchers to explore, annotate, and iterate on robotic datasetsCollaborate with pre-training and post-training teams to translate model data needs into concrete collection strategiesMeasure the downstream impact of data collection decisions on model and policy performanceWhat We're Looking ForHands-on experience with robotic data collection, teleoperation systems, or demonstration frameworksUnderstanding of what makes robot learning data useful: diversity, coverage, temporal quality, and action fidelityStrong software engineering skills for building reliable data collection and processing systemsAbility to reason across hardware, pipelines, and model performanceExperience working with real robotic hardware in a research or industrial settingNice To Have (But Not Required)Experience with sim-to-real transfer and synthetic data generation for roboticsFamiliarity with cross-embodiment datasets (e.g., Open X-Embodiment, DROID)Experience with VR teleoperation, motion capture, or dexterous demonstration collectionUnderstanding of imitation learning and how data properties affect policy generalizationPhD or strong research background in robotics or MLWhy This RoleThe data you collect and curate is the direct upstream dependency for all model qualityUnique leverage: improvements to data quality compound across every training runWork across hardware, systems, and research in a way few roles allowDirect feedback loop with both robot operators and research scientists to continuously improve data qualityAt Rhoda AI, we’re building the next generation of generalist intelligent robots. We own the full robotics stack from high-performance hardware and robot systems to the infrastructure and state-of-the-art foundation world models that control our robots. Our robots are designed to be generalists capable of operating in complex, real-world environments and handling long-tail edge cases, made possibly by our cutting edge research and end-to-end system design. We've raised over $400M and are investing aggressively in model research, infrastructure, hardware development, and manufacturing scale-up to make generalist robotics a reality.We're looking for a Research Scientist or Research Engineer to own the strategy and systems for collecting, curating, and scaling high-quality robot learning data. This role sits at the intersection of robotics, data collection, and research — your work directly determines the diversity and quality of the demonstrations our models train on.What You'll DoDesign and implement teleoperation and demonstration collection systems for high-quality robot learning dataDevelop data quality metrics, curation pipelines, and filtering strategies specific to robotic interaction dataResearch methods to augment real robot data with synthetic, simulated, or cross-embodiment sourcesIdentify and source external robotic datasets to expand training diversity across platforms and tasksBuild tooling for researchers to explore, annotate, and iterate on robotic datasetsCollaborate with pre-training and post-training teams to translate model data needs into concrete collection strategiesMeasure the downstream impact of data collection decisions on model and policy performanceWhat We're Looking ForHands-on experience with robotic data collection, teleoperation systems, or demonstration frameworksUnderstanding of what makes robot learning data useful: diversity, coverage, temporal quality, and action fidelityStrong software engineering skills for building reliable data collection and processing systemsAbility to reason across hardware, pipelines, and model performanceExperience working with real robotic hardware in a research or industrial settingNice To Have (But Not Required)Experience with sim-to-real transfer and synthetic data generation for roboticsFamiliarity with cross-embodiment datasets (e.g., Open X-Embodiment, DROID)Experience with VR teleoperation, motion capture, or dexterous demonstration collectionUnderstanding of imitation learning and how data properties affect policy generalizationPhD or strong research background in robotics or MLWhy This RoleThe data you collect and curate is the direct upstream dependency for all model qualityUnique leverage: improvements to data quality compound across every training runWork across hardware, systems, and research in a way few roles allowDirect feedback loop with both robot operators and research scientists to continuously improve data qualityAt Rhoda AI, we’re building the next generation of generalist intelligent robots. We own the full robotics stack from high-performance hardware and robot systems to the infrastructure and state-of-the-art foundation world models that control our robots. Our robots are designed to be generalists capable of operating in complex, real-world environments and handling long-tail edge cases, made possibly by our cutting edge research and end-to-end system design. We've raised over $400M and are investing aggressively in model research, infrastructure, hardware development, and manufacturing scale-up to make generalist robotics a reality.We're looking for a Research Scientist or Research Engineer to own the strategy and systems for collecting, curating, and scaling high-quality robot learning data. This role sits at the intersection of robotics, data collection, and research — your work directly determines the diversity and quality of the demonstrations our models train on.What You'll DoDesign and implement teleoperation and demonstration collection systems for high-quality robot learning dataDevelop data quality metrics, curation pipelines, and filtering strategies specific to robotic interaction dataResearch methods to augment real robot data with synthetic, simulated, or cross-embodiment sourcesIdentify and source external robotic datasets to expand training diversity across platforms and tasksBuild tooling for researchers to explore, annotate, and iterate on robotic datasetsCollaborate with pre-training and post-training teams to translate model data needs into concrete collection strategiesMeasure the downstream impact of data collection decisions on model and policy performanceWhat We're Looking ForHands-on experience with robotic data collection, teleoperation systems, or demonstration frameworksUnderstanding of what makes robot learning data useful: diversity, coverage, temporal quality, and action fidelityStrong software engineering skills for building reliable data collection and processing systemsAbility to reason across hardware, pipelines, and model performanceExperience working with real robotic hardware in a research or industrial settingNice To Have (But Not Required)Experience with sim-to-real transfer and synthetic data generation for roboticsFamiliarity with cross-embodiment datasets (e.g., Open X-Embodiment, DROID)Experience with VR teleoperation, motion capture, or dexterous demonstration collectionUnderstanding of imitation learning and how data properties affect policy generalizationPhD or strong research background in robotics or MLWhy This RoleThe data you collect and curate is the direct upstream dependency for all model qualityUnique leverage: improvements to data quality compound across every training runWork across hardware, systems, and research in a way few roles allowDirect feedback loop with both robot operators and research scientists to continuously improve data quality