--- title: 'Autonomous Agent Engineering Intern at Robotics and AI Institute' canonical: 'https://feeny.ai/job/autonomous-agent-engineering-intern-robotics-and-ai-institute-zurich-0ehkqjraddj9' type: 'job' last_seen: '2026-09-07' --- # Autonomous Agent Engineering Intern at Robotics and AI Institute - **Company:** Robotics and AI Institute - **Location:** Zurich, Switzerland - **Employment:** internship - **Work type:** onsite - **Posted:** 2026-09-01 - **Last confirmed live:** 2026-09-07 - **Apply:** https://jobs.lever.co/rai/dff73976-3e91-4897-af10-8d2433c63204 ## Job description ## Our Mission Our mission is to solve the most important and fundamental challenges in AI and Robotics to enable future generations of intelligent machines that will help us all live better lives. ## What You'll Do - Build and extend an agentic framework for managing on-robot workflows in various deployment scenarios - Create an internal benchmark for comprehensive evaluation of the agentic workflow in various robotic tasks - Work with engineers and researchers to integrate your work with powerful simulation tools and on-robot deployment - Profile, benchmark, and eliminate performance bottlenecks in resource-constrained Linux environments ## What You'll need - Currently pursuing a Master's (MS) or PhD degree in Robotics, Computer Science, Computational Science & Engineering, or a related field - Prior software engineering experience (e.g., industry internships, significant open-source contributions, or complex project work) - AI/ML Foundations: Experience with PyTorch and an understanding of modern AI architectures (LLMs, VLMs, or Reinforcement Learning). Areas of Special Interest While strong core software engineering fundamentals in systems programming are required, no specific domain expertise beyond that is necessary. However, if you happen to possess experience in any single one of the following areas, it would be a massive plus and highly relevant to our current projects: - Sim-to-Real Experience: Experience in deploying ML workflows on physical hardware - Vision-Language Models (VLMs): Experience integrating multimodal models for robotic perception and task planning. - Simulators: Experience testing code in simulated environments (e.g., Isaac Sim, MuJoCo). - Robotic Middleware: Familiarity with ROS2 - Robotic Perception: Familiarity with various scene representations (e.g., Gaussian Splattings, Scene Graphs, World Models, SDFs, etc.), perception frontends (e.g. DINO, SAM, SiGLIP etc.), and approaches to scene understanding. - Robot Learning: Experience in training ML models for robot action policies, robot perception frontends, and state estimation. ## About Robotics and AI Institute ## Company Overview - **One-liner**: A research institute founded by Boston Dynamics’ founder Marc Raibert, dedicated to advancing fundamental robotics and AI to create smarter, more capable robots for real-world applications. - **Entity Type**: Private (Research Institute) - **Headquarters**: Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA (main campus in Kendall Square); additional office in Zurich, Switzerland - **Founded**: Not publicly available (inferred as 2022 based on Marc Raibert’s departure from Boston Dynamics) - **Founders**: Marc Raibert ## Core Business - Primary industry/industries: Robotics research, Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, Mechanical & Electrical Engineering - Target customers: Academic partners, industry collaborators, and the broader robotics ecosystem (B2B / institutional) - Mission or purpose statement: “Create future generations of robots” that are smarter, more agile, dexterous, and easier to use – increasing productivity, freeing people from dangerous work, caring for the disabled, and helping people live better lives. ## Products & Services The institute does not sell commercial products; instead it produces open research and technology in five core areas: - **Dexterous Manipulation**: Algorithms, data, and hardware for dynamic manipulation of physical objects (assembly, repair, transport). - **Advanced Learning for Control**: Reinforcement learning, AI-directed long-horizon tasks, incremental learning, and adaptation to novel environments. - **Data-Driven AI Models for Physical Robot Interaction**: Foundation models that combine data-driven learning with principled physics models for complex physical tasks (precision assembly, force-mediated behavior). - **Navigation in Challenging Environments**: Advanced sensors and semantic understanding for wheeled, humanoid, and quadruped robots to navigate factories, cities, and homes. - **Ethics of Robots in Society**: Research on the social, legal, and ethical contexts of integrating robots into daily life. ## Market Standing - **Valuation/Market Cap**: Not applicable (non-commercial research institute) - **Key Metric**: Not disclosed (no revenue or funding rounds reported) - **Notable Investors/Partners**: Not publicly listed; led by Marc Raibert (founder of Boston Dynamics) with a team of seasoned robotics professionals - **Growth Signals**: Expanding team with open positions in research and engineering (internships and full-time) across two locations; active hiring for autonomous agent engineering, software engineering, sensor calibration & integration ## Competitive Advantages - **Founder pedigree**: Marc Raibert’s track record with Boston Dynamics (Spot, Atlas, Handle) gives the institute deep credibility and access to top talent. - **Focus on fundamental challenges**: Targets the hardest unsolved problems in robotics (dexterity, long-horizon control, force-mediated AI) rather than incremental improvements. - **Collaborative environment**: Blends academic research freedom with industry-level resources and structure, enabling cross-functional teams to tackle tough problems. ## Strategic Focus - Advance five core research areas simultaneously to create “future generations of robots” - Bridge the gap between current AI models and real-world physical interaction (force control, tight tolerances) - Build ethical frameworks alongside technical breakthroughs to ensure responsible integration of robots into society ## Why Work Here - **Culture**: Described as a “collaborative research environment” where team members learn from diverse experts and work on cross-functional challenges. - **Locations**: Main campus in Cambridge, MA (Kendall Square) and Zurich, Switzerland (Oerlikon robotics & AI hub). Both are vibrant tech ecosystems. - **Benefits**: Competitive packages including medical, dental, vision insurance, 401(k) with matching, and 12 weeks parental leave. - **Work style**: Roles are on-site (internships and full-time positions specify on-site in Zurich or Cambridge). No explicit remote policy mentioned. - **Engineering culture**: Teams span AI, robotics, computing, machine learning, perception, software, mechanical, and electrical engineering – offering exposure to full-stack robot development. ## Sources 1. [RAI Institute Careers Page](https://rai-inst.com/careers/) 2. [RAI Institute Home Page](https://rai-inst.com/) 3. [RAI Institute Jobs on Lever](https://jobs.lever.co/rai) 4. [RAI Institute Leadership Overview](https://rai-inst.com/about/leadership-overview/) 5. [RAI Institute Research Areas](https://rai-inst.com/research/) ## Other roles at Robotics and AI Institute - [Sensor Calibration & Integration Intern](https://feeny.ai/job/sensor-calibration-integration-intern-robotics-and-ai-institute-zurich-v135hwcaw2er) — Zurich, Switzerland - [Internship - Software Engineering](https://feeny.ai/job/internship-software-engineering-robotics-and-ai-institute-zurich-7qf8sd6xz80h) — Zurich, Switzerland - [Internship](https://feeny.ai/job/internship-robotics-and-ai-institute-zurich-q044a2zp6k1a) — Zurich, Switzerland