--- title: 'AI Resident at RoboForce' canonical: 'https://feeny.ai/job/ai-resident-roboforce-milpitas-3jvcfpdctykx' type: 'job' last_seen: '2026-11-07' --- # AI Resident at RoboForce - **Company:** RoboForce - **Location:** Milpitas, CA - **Posted:** 2026-10-20 - **Last confirmed live:** 2026-11-07 - **Apply:** https://job-boards.greenhouse.io/roboforce/jobs/5459229008 ## Job description ## Why RoboForce RoboForce is an AI robotics company developing Physical AI–powered Robo-Labor for dull, dirty, and dangerous work. The company’s robots are engineered for demanding industrial environments, with a focus on real-world deployment and scalability. The AI Residency Program The AI Residency Program is designed for exceptional early-career researchers and engineers who want to tackle some of the hardest problems in robotics and AI. Residents will work alongside a deeply technical team on core challenges in embodied physical intelligence, including Vision-Language-Action (VLA) models, World Models, World Action Models, and 3D foundation models, as well as the full stack of real-world learning—from efficient data collection systems and simulation to reinforcement learning and deployment on physical robots. This is a hands-on residency for people who want to do ambitious work with real consequences: building learning systems that connect perception, reasoning, and action in service of capable, deployable robots. What makes this program different is the direct connection between research and real-world deployment. Residents work with actual RoboForce robots, iterate quickly between simulation and physical execution, and contribute to systems designed for real use. The problems are hard, the standards are high, and the goal is to build systems that matter outside the lab. Research Focus Areas As an AI Resident, you may contribute across several core areas: - Vision-Language-Action (VLA) models for general-purpose robotic behavior - World Models for predictive modeling, planning, and long-horizon decision-making - World Action Models for jointly modeling action and environment dynamics - Simulation and sim-to-real transfer for scalable training, evaluation, and data generation - Reinforcement learning, imitation learning, and policy optimization for embodied agents - Multimodal learning across vision, language, proprioception, force, and action - Learning systems for manipulation and real-world embodied interaction ## What You’ll Do - Conduct research and build systems for embodied physical intelligence - Develop and evaluate methods in VLA, World Models, World Action Models, simulation, and RL - Design and run experiments on robotics tasks involving perception, planning, control, and long-horizon behavior - Build training and evaluation pipelines for large-scale embodied learning systems - Work closely with research and engineering teams to move ideas from prototype to real or simulated robot platforms - Explore how multimodal foundation models can improve robot capability in real deployment settings - Contribute to technical reports, internal research discussions, and, where appropriate, publications ## Basic Qualifications - PhD student, recent graduate, or early-career researcher/engineer in Computer Science, Robotics, Machine Learning, Electrical Engineering, or a related field - Experience with modern ML frameworks such as PyTorch, JAX, or TensorFlow - Experience using AI-assisted coding tools and agentic development workflows to prototype, iterate, and build quickly - Ability to implement, debug, and evaluate research ideas in a fast-moving environment - Strong engineering judgment, including the ability to validate, refine, and productionize AI-assisted code ## Preferred Qualifications - Rich hands-on experience in robotic manipulation, mobile manipulation, or industrial robotics - Experience training, fine-tuning, or evaluating multimodal or embodied models - Experience with World Models, action-conditioned prediction, model-based learning, planning, or control - Strong hands-on experience with simulation platforms such as Isaac Gym, Isaac Sim, MuJoCo, ManiSkill, Habitat, or similar systems - Experience with reinforcement learning, imitation learning, or post-training for robotic policies - Experience working with real robot hardware, data collection systems, evaluation workflows, or deployment pipelines - Demonstrated technical initiative through research, open-source contributions, or high-impact engineering work ## Compensation and Resources Duration: - 3–6 months, full-time Compensation: - $10,000 monthly salary Benefits: - Company-provided lunch and dinner, a fully stocked kitchen, and team events - Premium fitness center membership covered by the company Resources: Access to large-scale GPU clusters and production-grade infrastructure, with dedicated support to enable fast, uninterrupted experimentation on ambitious robotics and AI workloads ## About RoboForce ## Company Overview - **One-liner**: RoboForce builds scalable, deployable Physical AI-powered Robo-Labor for demanding industrial environments such as mining, manufacturing, solar, data centers, and shipping. - **Entity Type**: Private (Seed stage; total disclosed funding conflicting: $15M per LinkedIn vs. $52M per company website timeline) - **Headquarters**: Milpitas, California, United States - **Founded**: 2023 - **Founders**: Leo Ma (Founder & CEO) ## Core Business - Primary industry: Robotics Engineering (industrial automation, AI robotics) - Target customers: B2B, industrial enterprises in mining, manufacturing, solar energy, data centers, and shipping/logistics - Mission/purpose: “Robotics for Humanity” – solving human needs by extending human potential through Physical AI, automating “Dull, Dirty, Dangerous” work. ## Products & Services - **TITAN**: General-purpose AI robot for demanding industrial environments; multiple variants (TITAN-T launched, TITAN-W launched, TITAN prototype completed). - **Robo-Labor Workforce**: Deployable AI-powered robotic workforce for repetitive, precise, and heavy-duty workflows. - **RF-Net v1**: Robotic foundation network (AI/software layer for fleet learning). - **Market Solutions**: Tailored offerings for Solar (outdoor construction/inspection), Mining (hazardous environments), Manufacturing, Data Center (AI infrastructure operations), and Shipping (container movement/port logistics). ## Market Standing - **Valuation**: Not publicly disclosed. - **Key Metric**: Total funding – conflicting reports: - $15.0M total (two Seed rounds in 2025, per LinkedIn) - $52M new funding (per company website timeline for 2026) - **Notable Investors/Partners**: YZi Labs (lead), Myron Scholes, Gary Rieschel, Jerry Yang, Carnegie Mellon University. - **Growth Signals**: - Headcount: 32 employees (+168.8% YoY, per LinkedIn) - 10,000-unit robot LOI secured (2024) - First commercial pilot signed (2024) - New HQ office and WEF Technology Pioneer award (2026) - TITAN design v1 completion, prototype, and TITAN-W launch (2026) - Featured in Jensen Huang’s GTC keynote (AI-Centric Design highlight) ## Competitive Advantages - **AI-Centric Design**: Robots built to improve with every deployment; 3-5× improvement over existing solutions. - **Form-Factor Agnostic**: Focus on solving human needs rather than emulating human form – diverse hardware shapes optimized for specific tasks. - **Institutional Backing**: Founders and team from CMU, UMich, Amazon Robotics, Google, Waymo, Cruise, Tesla Robotics, ABB, Apple. - **Early Traction**: Pre-orders (LOI for 10,000 units) and commercial pilots already in place. ## Strategic Focus - Scale deployment of Robo-Labor across multiple industrial verticals (solar, mining, manufacturing, data centers, shipping). - Advance AI-native robotics through continuous fleet learning (RF-Net v1) and Nvidia ecosystem integration. - Expand physical infrastructure (new HQ) and grow engineering/AI research teams. ## Why Work Here - **Culture**: “Imagination leads the way” and “Great robots built by great people” – emphasis on creativity, joy, and making life better through real tools. - **Work Model**: On-site in Milpitas, CA (all current open roles are in-office). - **Engineering Focus**: Heavy investment in AI, robotics software/hardware, and foundation models; roles span AI Research, Robotics Software, Hardware, and Data Operations. - **Trajectory**: Fast-growing startup (168% headcount growth YoY) with early revenue signals and top-tier backers; opportunity to work on cutting-edge Physical AI from the ground floor. ## Sources 1. [roboforce.ai](https://www.roboforce.ai/) 2. [roboforce.ai/about-us](https://www.roboforce.ai/about-us) 3. [roboforce.ai/careers](https://www.roboforce.ai/careers) 4. [linkedin.com/company/roboforce-ai](https://www.linkedin.com/company/roboforce-ai) 5. [greenhouse.io/roboforce](https://job-boards.greenhouse.io/roboforce/jobs/4817535008) ## Other roles at RoboForce - [Staff Research Engineer, Robot Learning Systems](https://feeny.ai/job/staff-research-engineer-robot-learning-systems-roboforce-milpitas-zdfaqy16f9wx) — Milpitas, CA - [Senior / Staff AI Research Engineer, Real-Time Inference](https://feeny.ai/job/senior-staff-ai-research-engineer-real-time-inference-roboforce-milpitas-vp76k20nssgc) — Milpitas, CA - [Machine Learning Engineer Intern, AI & Robotics](https://feeny.ai/job/machine-learning-engineer-intern-ai-robotics-roboforce-milpitas-agj4meczfc9f) — Milpitas, CA - [Office & Workplace Administrator](https://feeny.ai/job/office-workplace-administrator-roboforce-milpitas-wf2scfsmew5k) — Milpitas, CA - [Senior / Staff Manufacturing Engineer](https://feeny.ai/job/senior-staff-manufacturing-engineer-roboforce-milpitas-nc5q21c01jph) — Milpitas, CA - [Robotics Mechanical Engineering Intern (Fall/Winter 2026)](https://feeny.ai/job/robotics-mechanical-engineering-intern-fall-winter-2026-roboforce-milpitas-gd446fdq18j4) — Milpitas, CA - [Robotics Software Engineer](https://feeny.ai/job/robotics-software-engineer-roboforce-milpitas-2pb505w5skyx) — Milpitas, CA - [Talent Acquisition Partner](https://feeny.ai/job/talent-acquisition-partner-roboforce-milpitas-ac13xex1bpet) — Milpitas, CA - [Lead AI Native Engineer](https://feeny.ai/job/lead-ai-native-engineer-roboforce-milpitas-dyfd5k3t8xv2) — Milpitas, CA - [Model Evaluation Operator - AI Robotics (Swing Shift)](https://feeny.ai/job/model-evaluation-operator-ai-robotics-swing-shift-roboforce-milpitas-v5dmfwae6ft8) — Milpitas, CA