Staff Roboticist- Stretch Manipulation

Stretch, Boston Dynamics' mobile manipulation robot for warehouse applications, has moved nearly 50 million boxes for customers around the world. On the Stretch Manipulation team, your innovations ship directly to that fleet, driving customer value each and every day. You'll develop within a vertically integrated system, providing the opportunity to tightly couple your software with world-class hardware, with access to fleet metrics and fleet-scale data to guide innovation. The base pay range for this position is between $135,000 to $160,000 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.

Responsibilities

Hands-on development of Stretch's manipulation stack, leveraging algorithmic and data-driven techniques; Advance Stretch's manipulation capabilities (grasping, motion generation, next box selection); Track the latest advancements in robotics and physical AI and rigorously evaluate them for real-world performance before deploying them as shippable features; Rapidly iterate from concepts to on-robot tests to hardened features; Engage with customer-facing teams (Product, Customer Success) to solve real-world warehouse challenges

Requirements

Deep expertise in classical manipulation (planning, control, grasping) or robot learning (imitation learning, RL, VLAs), with working fluency in the other; Bachelor's or Master's with 2+ years of experience, or Ph.D. in Computer Science, Robotics, or a related field; Experience developing and evaluating classical and learned robot capabilities in simulation and via on-robot experiments; strong physical intuition, and confidence, comfort, and excitement when working with real robots; Excellent programming skills in C++ and Python within a Linux environment; strong debugging skills; familiarity with modern agentic programming workflows (e.g., Claude Code); Experience deploying robotic manipulation capabilities to production, especially in logistics or warehouse settings; Eligible to work in the United States (visa sponsorship not available)

Nice to have

Publications in top-tier robotics/AI conferences and journals (e.g., RSS, ICRA, IROS, RA-L, T-RO, NeurIPS, ICML, ICLR, CoRL); Strong record in robotics competitions

Benefits

Medical; Dental; Vision; 401(k); Paid time off; Annual bonus structure