Staff Data Scientist – Simulation Motion AI

Primary Function of Position

As a Staff Data Scientist Simulation Motion AI you will lead the design of scalable simulation-data systems used to train evaluate and improve robotic policies for complex safety-critical motion AI products. You will work alongside foundation and policy model teams test regulatory product and clinical teams to generate data train and test algorithms in simulation at scale for motion AI products.

Responsibilities

• Architect scalable pipelines for generating synthetic and procedurally varied robotic interaction data using Isaac Sim Isaac Lab MuJoCo or similar simulators.

• Build SOTA scalable simulation environments developing task data generation ML and scene domain randomization strategies covering:

  • Robot initial conditions and calibration errors

  • Camera poses optics lighting and occlusions

  • Object geometry appearance pose and material properties

  • Contact friction compliance deformation and force variation

  • Tool wear latency noise and actuator uncertainty

  • Nominal edge-case failure and recovery conditions

• Define data-generation curricula that progress from constrained primitive actions to long-horizon multi-stage robotic tasks.

• Generate targeted recovery data for rare but safety-relevant conditions including failed grasps object displacement camera obstruction tracking loss unexpected contact and partial task completion.

• Design systems for efficiently replaying perturbing relabeling and extending real-world robot trajectories in simulation.

• Establish provenance metadata versioning and reproducibility standards for simulated datasets.

Qualifications :

Required Qualifications

• PhD or Masters degree in Computer Science robotics machine learning data science electrical engineering mechanical engineering applied mathematics or a related technical field.

• 9 years of industry experience post training developing simulation machine learning robotics computer vision simulation or autonomous-systems software; or 4 years of industry experience with a PhD

• Proven hands-on experience with at least one major robotics simulation platform: NVIDIA Isaac Sim NVIDIA Isaac Lab MuJoCo or Equivalent physics-based robotics simulation environment

• Expertise in creating custom simulation environments robot assets task definitions sensors reward functions termination criteria or procedural scene-generation systems.

• Expertise with Python and modern machine-learning frameworks such as PyTorch

• Experience working with robot kinematics dynamics coordinate frames calibration trajectory representations and closed-loop control and designing datasets and experiments for multimodal or time-series machine learning.

• Demonstrated ability to diagnose model failures using quantitative analysis rather than relying solely on aggregate success metrics.

• Experience deploying testing or validating models on physical robotic systems.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience developing vision-based manipulation policies using RGB stereo depth segmentation optical flow keypoints or learned visual representations.

• Experience with transformer diffusion or vision-language-action for robotics.

• Experience with deformable-object simulation articulated objects fluids cables sutures tissue or other contact-rich environments.

• Experience with experiment tracking dataset versioning distributed training and large-scale simulation infrastructure.

• Familiarity with containerized and distributed computing technologies such as Docker Kubernetes Slurm Ray or cloud GPU platforms.

• Experience in a safety-critical field such as medical robotics autonomous vehicles aviation industrial automation or defense.

• Proficiency in GPU optimization for either inference or rendering

Additional Information :

Due to the nature of our business and the role please note that Intuitive and/or your customer(s) may require that you show current proof of vaccination against certain diseases including COVID-19.  Details can vary by role.

Intuitive is an Equal Opportunity Employer. We provide equal employment opportunities to all qualified applicants and employees and prohibit discrimination and harassment of any type without regard to race sex pregnancy sexual orientation gender identity national origin color age religion protected veteran or disability status genetic information or any other status protected under federal state or local applicable laws.

Mandatory Notices

U.S. Export Controls Disclaimer:  In accordance with the U.S. Export Administration Regulations (15 CFR 743.13(b)) some roles at Intuitive Surgical may be subject to U.S. export controls for prospective employeeswho are nationals from countries currently on embargo or sanctions status.

Certain information you provide as part of the application will be used for purposes of determining whether Intuitive Surgical will need to (i) obtain an export license from the U.S. Government on your behalf (note: the governments licensing process can take 3 to 6 months) or (ii) implement a Technology Control Plan (TCP) (note: typically adds 2 weeks to the hiring process).  

For any Intuitive role subject to export controls final offers are contingent upon obtaining an approved export license and/or an executed TCP prior to the prospective employeesstart date which may or may not be flexible and within a timeframe that does not unreasonably impede the hiring need. If applicable candidates will be notified and instructed on any requirements for these purposes. 

We will consider for employment qualified applicants with arrest and conviction records in accordance with fair chance laws.

Preference will be given to qualified candidates who do not reside or plan to reside in Alabama Arkansas Delaware Florida Indiana Iowa Louisiana Maryland Mississippi Missouri Oklahoma Pennsylvania South Carolina or Tennessee.

This position may be filled at a different job level than listed here depending on
business need and/or on the selected candidates experience knowledge and skills.
Compensation will be based primarily on the job level at which the role is filled and the
candidates qualifications consistent with applicable law.

We provide market-competitive compensation packages inclusive of base pay incentives benefits and equity. It would not be typical for someone to be hired at the top end of range for the role as actual pay will be determined based on several factors including experience skills and qualifications. The target compensation ranges are listed.

Remote Work :

No

Employment Type :

Full-time