Boston Dynamics

Reinforcement Learning Engineer - Locomanipulation

Boston Dynamics$200K — $350K *
Consumer Technology
Less than 5 years of experience
Job Overview by Ladders

Qualifications

  • MS or PhD in Robotics, Machine Learning, Computer Science, or related field
  • Strong experience with reinforcement learning techniques such as PPO and SAC
  • Proficient in applying reinforcement learning to robotics or physical systems
  • Hands-on experience deploying learned policies on real robotic systems
  • Familiar with physics-based simulation environments like Isaac Lab and MuJoCo
  • Strong programming skills in Python and/or C++

Responsibilities

  • Design and train reinforcement learning policies for humanoid robot control
  • Build scalable simulation and training pipelines, engaging tools like Isaac Lab and MuJoCo
  • Design and develop appropriate reward functions, observation spaces, and educational curricula for complex behaviors
  • Enhance the robustness and sim-to-real transfer of learned policies
  • Deploy and evaluate robotics control policies on real-world hardware
  • Integrate reinforcement learning policies into the existing control stack

Benefits

  • Comprehensive health coverage including medical, dental, and vision insurance
  • 23 days of PTO, plus separate sick leave and paid company holidays
  • 401(k) retirement plan with employer match
  • Equity options for employees to share in company success
  • Daily catered lunches, snacks, and drinks provided at the office
  • Collaboration opportunities with leading engineers and researchers in AI and robotics
  • Autonomy to influence product direction and ownership of initiatives
Full Job Description
About the Role

We are looking for a Senior or Staff Reinforcement Learning Engineer to develop learning-based control policies for humanoid robots.

You will design and train reinforcement learning policies that enable dynamic locomotion and loco-manipulation behaviors on real robots. Your work will focus on building scalable training pipelines, designing reward functions and environments, and improving sim-to-real transfer for reliable deployment on hardware.

You will work closely with control and robotics engineers to integrate learned policies into the robot control stack, ensuring stable and robust behavior in real-world conditions.

Development will involve continuous iteration between large-scale simulation and hardware experiments.

The problems you will work on include dynamic locomotion, balance recovery, contact-rich manipulation, and multi-behavior policy learning.

What You'll Do
  • Design and train reinforcement learning policies for humanoid robot control.
  • Build scalable simulation and training pipelines (e.g., Isaac Lab, MuJoCo).
  • Design reward functions, observation spaces, and curricula for complex behaviors.
  • Improve robustness and sim-to-real transfer of learned policies.
  • Deploy and evaluate policies on real robotic systems.
  • Integrate policies into the control stack.


What We're Looking For
  • MS or PhD in Robotics, Machine Learning, Computer Science, or related field.
  • Strong experience with reinforcement learning (e.g., PPO, SAC, offline RL).
  • Experience applying RL to robotics or physical systems.
  • Experience deploying learned policies on real robotic systems.
  • Experience with physics-based simulation environments (e.g., Isaac Lab, MuJoCo).
  • Strong programming skills in Python and/or C++.
Nice to have
  • Experience with RL for locomotion or legged robots.
  • Experience with sim-to-real transfer.
  • Familiarity with robot dynamics, control, or whole-body control.


What We Offer
  • Comprehensive health coverage for US-based employees, including fully paid medical, dental, and vision insurance, with virtual care and employee assistance resources.
  • Meaningful time off to rest and recharge: 23 days of PTO (accrued), separate sick leave, and paid company holidays.
  • 401(k) retirement plan with employer match.
  • Equity included-we believe builders should share in what they build.
  • Free daily catered lunch, snacks, and drinks in-office.
  • Collaboration with top-tier engineers, researchers, and product experts in AI and robotics.
  • Freedom to influence the product and own key initiatives.

For this role in Massachusetts, the expected base salary range is $200K-$350K USD per year; your placement in that range depends on how your experience maps to our internal leveling.

About Boston Dynamics

Boston Dynamics is an American engineering and robotics design company founded in 1992 as a spin-off from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The company is best known for the development of BigDog, a quadruped robot designed for the U.S. military. Boston Dynamics has also developed a number of other robots, including Spot, a four-legged robot designed for indoor and outdoor operation, and Atlas, a humanoid robot designed for a variety of search and rescue tasks. In 2013, the company was acquired by Google X, a subsidiary of Alphabet Inc. In 2020, the company was acquired by Hyundai Motor Group. Boston Dynamics is headquartered in Waltham, Massachusetts.
Learn more about Boston Dynamics
Size
300 employees
Industry
Founded
1992

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