Staff Robot Software Engineer, Large Behavior Models

Job Description

Job Description

At Toyota Research Institute (TRI), we’re on a mission to improve the quality of human life. We’re developing new tools and capabilities to amplify the human experience. To lead this transformative shift in mobility, we’ve built a world-class team in Automated Driving, Energy & Materials, Human-Centered AI, Human-Interactive Driving, Large Behavior Models, and Robotics.

The Mission

Make general-purpose robots a reality.

The Challenge

We envision a future where robots assist with household chores and cooking, aid the older population in maintaining their independence, and enable people to spend more time on the activities they enjoy most. To achieve this, robots need to be able to operate reliably in messy, unstructured environments. Our mission is to answer the question “What will it take to create truly general-purpose robots that can accomplish a wide variety of tasks in settings like human homes with minimal human supervision?”. We believe that the answer lies in cultivating large-scale datasets of physical interaction from a variety of sources and building on the latest advances in machine learning to learn general-purpose robot behaviors from this data.

At Toyota Research Institute (TRI), we’re on a mission to improve the quality of human life. We’re developing new tools and capabilities to amplify the human experience. To lead this ground-breaking shift in mobility, we’ve built an extraordinary team in Automated Driving, Energy & Materials, Human-Centered AI, Human-Interactive Driving, Large Behavior Models, and Robotics.

The Mission

Make general-purpose robots a reality.

The Challenge

We envision a future where robots assist with household chores and cooking, aid the older population in maintaining their independence, and enable people to spend more time on the activities they enjoy most. To achieve this, robots need to be able to operate reliably in messy, unstructured environments. Our mission is to answer the question “What will it take to create truly general-purpose robots that can accomplish a wide variety of tasks in settings like human homes with minimal human supervision?”. We believe that the answer lies in cultivating large-scale datasets of physical interaction from a variety of sources and building on the latest advances in machine learning to learn general-purpose robot behaviors from this data.

Robotics

The mission of TRI Robotics is to invent and prove new robotic capabilities required to enable home robots to solve the challenges faced by an aging society. As part of that mission, we are developing a sophisticated suite of open source robotics software called Drake (https : / / drake.mit.edu (https : / / drake.mit.edu / ) (https : / / drake.mit.edu / ) (https : / / drake.mit.edu / ))), for use in our internal robotics projects and the wider community of advanced robotics researchers.

The Team

Join Toyota Research Institute’s LBM-C division to change the world by creating and shipping useful general-purpose AI-driven robots. Within this division, the hardware team's mission is building a highly scalable fleet of robots capable of performing the same general mobile manipulation tasks as humans, in human-like ways and at human-like speeds, via shared autonomy. Join us to build the future of general-purpose physical automation.

The Opportunity

We're looking for a driven and hands-on technical leader who will architect and build our next-generation software stack powering our general-purpose humanoid robots. This is a deeply technical role for someone passionate about driving technical excellence and leads by example writing and reviewing production code, designing and debugging complex systems, and mentoring engineers.

Responsibilities

• Architect & Build the Core Stack : Design and implement a high-performance robot software stack including real-time control loops, middleware, networking, high-throughput logging pipelines, and immersive teleoperation interfaces. Make informed high-velocity technical decisions under uncertainty.
• Own End-to-End Technical Execution : Take complex robotics problems from concept to customer deployment. Debug challenging integration issues, optimize performance bottlenecks, and ensure our robots work reliably at the edge of their physical capabilities.
• T echnical Leadership Through Doing : Mentor engineers by pairing on code, conducting design reviews, and demonstrating engineering excellence through your own work. Establish patterns and practices that the team can follow by example.
• Drive Technical Quality : Champion robust engineering practices including testing, profiling, and systematic debugging. Establish workflows to recreate and debug rare edge cases during deployment. Create the technical foundation that enables the team to quickly move with confidence.
• Collaborate Across Disciplines : Work closely with the hardware team to co-design future robots. Collaborate the AI team to deploy innovative learned policies on robots. Coordinate with the operations team to ensure smooth deployment in the field.

Qualifications

Bonus Qualifications

The pay range for this position at commencement of employment is expected to be between $240,000 and $360,000 / year for Massachusetts-based roles. Base pay offered will depend on multiple individualized factors, including, but not limited to, business or organizational needs, market location, job-related knowledge, skills, and experience. TRI offers a generous benefits package including medical, dental, and vision insurance, 401(k) eligibility, paid time off benefits (including vacation, sick time, and parental leave), and an annual cash bonus structure. Additional details regarding these benefit plans will be provided if an employee receives an offer of employment.

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