{"id":42066,"url":"https://alion.io/job/dynarobotics-research-engineerscientist-simulation","title":"Research Scientist, Simulation","company":{"id":4733,"name":"Dyna Robotics","domain":"dynarobotics.com","url":"https://alion.io/company/dynarobotics","size_band":"201-500","is_staffing_agency":false,"employer_type":"direct","is_intermediary":false,"listed_via":null,"ats_vendor":"Ashby","truth_index":{"grade":"B","score":80,"open_postings":24,"ghost_share":0.25,"stale_share":0,"repost_share":0,"time_to_fill_p50_days":61,"computed_at":"2026-10-13T05:45:00Z"}},"role":"AI/ML","role_family":"AI/ML","seniority":null,"employment_type":"full_time","work_mode":"on_site","remote_scope":null,"remote_scope_basis":null,"remote_working_hours":null,"hiring_geo_confidence":"structured","locations":["Redwood City, United States"],"countries":["US"],"hiring_countries":[],"hiring_countries_total":0,"salary":null,"salary_estimate":{"min_usd":206000,"max_usd":452000,"period":"year","method":"role_country_seniority_unknown","sample_n":3786},"experience_years_min":null,"visa_sponsorship":false,"relocation_package":false,"has_equity":false,"technologies":[{"name":"Blender","optional":false},{"name":"Diffusion Models","optional":false},{"name":"Embodied AI","optional":false},{"name":"Imitation Learning","optional":false},{"name":"Isaac Lab","optional":false},{"name":"Isaac Sim","optional":false},{"name":"JAX","optional":false},{"name":"MuJoCo","optional":false},{"name":"Python","optional":false},{"name":"PyTorch","optional":false},{"name":"Sim-to-Real","optional":false},{"name":"Vision-Language-Action","optional":false},{"name":"CUDA","optional":true},{"name":"CUDA Toolkit","optional":true},{"name":"Gaussian Splatting","optional":true},{"name":"NeRF","optional":true},{"name":"World Models","optional":true}],"status":"live","first_seen_at":"2026-08-04T17:48:16Z","employer_posted_date":"2026-08-04","last_verified_at":"2026-10-13T11:14:49Z","board_verified":true,"closed_at":null,"days_open":69,"trust":{"level":"ok","repost_count":0,"flags":["company_stale"],"days_open":69},"description":"Dyna Robotics builds general-purpose robots powered by a proprietary embodied AI foundation model with top-in-industry generalization and real-world performance. Already deployed with customers across multiple industries, our robots do commercial-grade work in the physical world. Our team comes from Google DeepMind, Meta, and Cruise, and we're backed by CRV, First Round, and other leading investors.\nThe Role\nAs a Research Scientist focused on Simulation, you will build the simulated worlds that power Dyna's loco-manipulation policies. Our robot is a wheeled mobile manipulator. Mobility and manipulation are tightly coupled, not two separate problems, so simulating one without the other misses what actually matters for our policies. You'll own the pipeline end-to-end: from real-to-sim reconstruction of the facility-scale environments our robots navigate, through procedural scene generation, to sim-based training data and evaluation for policies that jointly control base motion and arm manipulation.\nWhat You'll Do\nReal-to-Sim Reconstruction: Build a pipeline that reconstructs real, facility-scale environments into simulation (3D reconstruction, photorealistic re-rendering). That means full rooms and aisles our wheeled base navigates, not just tabletop scenes.\nFacility-Scale Scene Generation: Procedurally generate navigable environments (layouts, obstacles, object placement) that stress-test loco-manipulation policies across the range of spaces our robots actually operate in.\nLoco-Manipulation Sim-for-Data-Gen: Generate synthetic training data for policies that jointly reason about base positioning and arm manipulation (approach angles, reachability, obstacle-aware repositioning), and feed real-world failure modes back into new sim scenarios.\nLoco-Manipulation Evaluation: Build simulation benchmarks that test the joint base+arm policy (VLA / imitation learning / diffusion models) as a whole, not manipulation in isolation on a fixed base.\nRendering for ML, Not Just Physics: Push photorealistic rendering quality specifically to close the sim-to-real gap for vision-based loco-manipulation. Rendering fidelity is a first-class deliverable, not an afterthought on top of physics accuracy.\nCross-Team Collaboration: Partner with the AI Research team on where simulated data and evaluation most accelerate loco-manipulation policy development, and with Data Ops on what's worth capturing in the real world vs. generating in sim.\nWhat You'll Bring\nMS or PhD in CS/Robotics/Graphics, or equivalent hands-on experience. We care more about demonstrated depth building simulation/rendering systems than a fixed years-of-experience bar.\n\nHands-on experience with simulation stacks (MuJoCo, Isaac Sim/Isaac Lab, SAPIEN, Omniverse, Blender, or similar) for robotics or graphics.\n\nExperience with procedural scene/asset generation, domain randomization, or photorealistic rendering pipelines at scale (not academic-scale one-off scenes).\n\nFamiliarity with training/evaluating manipulation or loco-manipulation policies (imitation learning, VLA, diffusion, or RL) and how simulated data actually feeds into them.\n\nExperience simulating mobile bases (wheeled, tracked, or holonomic) is a real plus. Most of the field's simulation talent comes from fixed-arm tabletop manipulation or legged-humanoid balance/gait work, and neither maps cleanly onto a wheeled mobile manipulator.\n\nPrior research or engineering background in loco-manipulation or whole-body control itself, coordinating mobile-base motion with arm manipulation, independent of any simulation-specific experience.\n\nStrong Python skills; comfort with PyTorch or JAX for anything touching model training/eval.\n\nSenior enough to define your own research agenda and exercise independent judgment on where simulation adds the most leverage. This is closer to a founding-type ownership role than a narrow IC slot on an existing pipeline.\n\nBonus Points For\nExperience with real-to-sim-to-real pipelines (3D reconstruction, NeRF/Gaussian splatting, differentiable rendering).\n\nExposure to world-model / video-prediction research (e.g. learned dynamics or latent world models) as a complement to classical physics simulation.\n\nGPU-scale physics simulation experience (CUDA, large-batch parallel sim) rather than single-instance sim.\n\nBackground simulating wheeled/mobile manipulators specifically (e.g. Boston Dynamics Stretch, warehouse/logistics robotics) rather than legged humanoids or fixed-base arms.\n\nPublications at CoRL, RSS, ICRA, NeurIPS, CVPR, or SIGGRAPH.\n\nExperience leading or mentoring within a small research team.\n\nAtDyna Robotics, we build technology for the real world, which requires a team as diverse as the environments our robots inhabit. We are an equal opportunity employer committed to technical rigor and mutual respect.\n Don’t let a checklist stop you. Data shows that underrepresented groups often only apply if they meet 100% of the criteria. We value problem-solving and grit over keyword matching. If you’re passionate about robotics, no matter your discipline, we want to hear from you, even if you don't check every box.","description_format":"text","description_chars":5124,"description_truncated":false,"requirements":{"experience_years_min":null,"management_years_min":null,"team_size_min":null,"manages_managers":false,"education":{"level":"phd","optional":false},"security_clearance":false,"languages":[]},"benefits":[],"hiring_locations":[],"hiring_excludes":[],"relocation_offered":false,"industries":["Robotics AI","Industrial Robotics","Robotic Software & Control Systems","Foundation Models"],"lifecycle":[{"event":"open","at":"2026-08-04T17:48:16Z"}],"visa":[{"country":"US","licensed_sponsor":true,"evidence":"H-1B filings in 12 months: 7","filings_12m":7,"filings_prev_12m":8,"green_card_filings_12m":0,"median_offered_wage_usd":171786,"route":null,"cap_exempt":false,"checked_at":"2026-10-03T21:08:04+00:00","sources":["US Department of Labor: LCA disclosure data (H-1B, H-1B1, E-3)"],"filings_for_role_12m":6}],"liveness":{"score":28,"band":"fade","label":"Fading","p_open":1,"p_active":0.643,"p_room":0.44,"age_days":69,"expected_fill_days":61,"reasons":["conf:1","win:tail","crowd:"],"computed_at":"2026-10-13T05:45:00Z"},"pay":null,"html_url":"https://alion.io/job/dynarobotics-research-engineerscientist-simulation","json_url":"https://alion.io/job/dynarobotics-research-engineerscientist-simulation.json","meta":{"generated_at":"2026-10-13T13:48:55Z","cache_seconds":300,"methodology":"https://alion.io/methodology","terms":"https://alion.io/terms","contact":"https://alion.io/contact","api":"https://alion.io/developers","about":"Alion is a live layer of people, companies and AI agents: who they are, whether they are real and active right now, what they do and how to work with them, readable by people and by agents and paid per call.","catalog":"https://alion.io/catalog.json","usage":{"tier":"crawler_verified","counted_by":"address","units_charged":1,"used_today":21239,"day_limit":null,"remaining_today":null,"minute_limit":300,"resets_at":"2026-10-14T00:00:00Z"}},"offers":[{"id":"company.slices","title":"One company in depth, by slice","status":"live","price":{"credits":0.02,"usd":0.002,"plus_per_slice":{"credits":0.05,"usd":0.005}},"unit":"per company, plus each slice with data","note":"the employer in depth","call":{"mcp_tool":"get_company","arguments":{"id":4733},"rest":"https://alion.io/mcp/rest/get_company?id=4733"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=company.slices&for=job%2Fdynarobotics-research-engineerscientist-simulation"},{"id":"market.stats","title":"A market slice: pay, demand and time to fill","status":"live","price":{"credits":1,"usd":0.1},"unit":"per slice","note":"pay, demand and time to fill for this role and place","call":{"mcp_tool":"market_stats"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=market.stats&for=job%2Fdynarobotics-research-engineerscientist-simulation"},{"id":"job.search","title":"Open jobs by role, technology, place, pay and visa","status":"live","price":{"credits":0.02,"usd":0.002},"unit":"per posting in a list","note":"similar open postings","call":{"mcp_tool":"search_jobs"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=job.search&for=job%2Fdynarobotics-research-engineerscientist-simulation"},{"id":"company.verify","title":"Is this company real and active right now","status":"pilot","price":null,"unit":"per company","request":{"url":"https://alion.io/catalog/request","method":"POST","body":"{\"offer\": \"company.verify\", \"for\": \"job/dynarobotics-research-engineerscientist-simulation\", \"note\": \"what you need it for\"}"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=company.verify&for=job%2Fdynarobotics-research-engineerscientist-simulation"}]}