Principal Research Scientist, Robot Intelligence

Lab Summary: The Robot Intelligence Lab at Samsung Research America is a new facility dedicated to advancing the field of robotics through cutting-edge research and development. The lab’s mission is to develop advanced technologies to power intelligent robotic systems capable of manipulation, navigation, and complex reasoning for a variety of high-impact application areas. To achieve this mission, the lab collaborates closely with external entities such as universities, startups, and government labs, as well as with several Samsung Product and Advanced Research labs.   

Position Summary:  Samsung Research America is looking for a Principal Research Scientist with solid technical skills and rich academic and/or industry experience in areas of robotics and embodied intelligence. Our ideal candidate explores novel AI technologies towards generalizing robots to perform tasks in the real world and is passionate at pursuing technology patenting and publication. Samsung’s unique advantage in the consumer electronics market and growing focus on AI and robotics will provide you with exciting technical challenges and a rewarding career experience. By leveraging Samsung’s vast product ecosystem to deliver novel user experiences, your work will define Samsung’s future in robotics and significantly impact real-world users.

Candidates with additional experience are encouraged to apply in and will be considered for other opportunities.

Position Responsibilities:

• Conduct state-of-the-art research to push boundaries of emerging fields of robotics and embodied intelligence, on topics such as robotics foundation models, vision-language-action (VLA) models, vision language models (VLMs), open-world 3D perception, dexterous manipulation, and multimodal (vision, tactile, audio, semantic) data fusion
• Work with the team to design and implement research prototypes and technology demonstrators on robotic platforms
• Work within cross-functional, cross-divisional teams and assist in the design, analysis and performance evaluation from concept to completion
• Provide technical leadership and assist in shaping R&D priorities by following up-to-date scientific research and communicating key developments
• Generate patents and scientific research papers for top-tier publication venues

Required Skills:

• PhD degree in CS/EE/Robotics, or equivalent combination of education, training, and experience
• 11+ years’ post-graduate experience conducting state-of-the-art robotics R&D
• Strong research track-record including multiple first-author publications at top-tier venues in robotics or related fields, e.g., CoRL, ICRA, RAL, RSS, CVPR, ICML
• Comprehensive understanding of the fundamentals of robotics, machine learning, and computer vision
• Demonstrated experience implementing and testing complex integrated behaviors on simulated and real robots
• Knowledgeable of tools and processes for ML model development, tuning, evaluation, and deployment
• Familiarity with PyTorch, TensorFlow, C++, ROS, and CUDA
• Excellent problem-solving skills and the ability to work independently and as part of a team
• Excellent verbal communication and writing skills to effectively represent the derived results and technical concepts developed in the course of the work