---
title: 'ML Engineer, Manipulation at Diligent Robotics'
canonical: 'https://feeny.ai/job/ml-engineer-manipulation-diligent-robotics-in-the-106gz35yek1q'
type: 'job'
last_seen: '2026-10-14'
---

# ML Engineer, Manipulation at Diligent Robotics

- **Company:** Diligent Robotics
- **Location:** IN the, United States
- **Work type:** remote
- **Posted:** 2026-03-03
- **Last confirmed live:** 2026-10-14
- **Apply:** https://job-boards.greenhouse.io/diligentrobotics/jobs/7651459003

## Job description

What we’re doing isn’t easy, but nothing worth doing ever is.

We envision a future powered by robots that work seamlessly with human teams. We build artificial intelligence that enables service robots to collaborate with people and adapt to dynamic human environments. Join our mission-driven team as we build out current and future generations of robots.

As an ML Engineer, Manipulation, you will develop and deploy learning-based manipulation systems that enable mobile robots to interact reliably with the physical world in dynamic human environments. You’ll build perception-to-action models, training datasets, evaluation tooling, and deployment pipelines that improve robustness, generalization, and safety for real-world manipulation tasks at scale. Your work will directly impact the robot’s ability to perform complex interactions consistently across real sites with minimal special-case engineering.

## Responsibilities

- Develop learning-based manipulation models for end to end sensor-driven interaction (e.g., reaching, motion generation, and execution in dynamic environments).
- Build and maintain manipulation training pipelines: dataset creation from robot logs/teleop, action representations, augmentation, and distributed training.
- Design evaluation metrics and regression tests that quantify manipulation reliability, recovery behavior, and safety in real environments.
- Develop sim-to-real workflows for manipulation learning, including simulation environments, domain randomization, and failure-mode testing.
- Optimize and distill models for edge deployment; benchmark latency, memory use, and stability on target hardware.
- Partner with the AI platform team to integrate policies with control and safety systems, and validate end-to-end performance on robots.
- Analyze field performance, identify dominant failure modes, and drive iterative improvements through data collection and targeted retraining.

## Basic Qualifications

- Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in Robotics, Computer Science, Electrical Engineering, or related field (PhD a plus).
- 3+ years of experience applying ML to robotics manipulation, visuomotor control, or sequential to sequence models.
- Strong proficiency in PyTorch and experience building reliable training/evaluation pipelines.
- Strong software engineering skills in Python; ability to collaborate across ML and robotics teams.

## Preferred Qualifications

- Experience with Vision-Language-Action (VLA) models, behavior cloning, and/or transformer/diffusion policies for robotic control.
- Experience with sim-to-real training for manipulation (Isaac Sim/Mujoco or similar), including domain randomization and synthetic data.
- Experience deploying ML models to edge hardware (ONNX/TensorRT, quantization, performance profiling).
- Familiarity with safety-critical robotics integration and designing fallback/recovery behaviors.

## About Diligent Robotics

## Company Overview
- **One-liner**: Diligent Robotics builds AI-powered robot assistants, like Moxi, that work alongside healthcare teams to handle routine logistical tasks, freeing up clinicians to focus on patient care.
- **Entity Type**: Private (Acquired by Serve Robotics in January 2026)
- **Headquarters**: Austin, Texas, United States
- **Founded**: 2017
- **Founders**: Andrea Thomaz (CEO & Co-Founder) and Vivian Chu (Chief Innovation Officer & Co-Founder)

## Core Business
- **Primary industry/industries**: Healthcare Robotics, Artificial Intelligence, Human-Robot Interaction
- **Target customers**: Hospitals and healthcare systems (B2B/Enterprise)
- **Mission or purpose statement**: To restore focus to patient care in hospitals by deploying robot teammates that handle non-patient-facing tasks, enabling clinical staff to dedicate more time to patients.

## Products & Services
- **[Moxi]**: A social robot designed for hospitals that autonomously performs secure, 24/7 deliveries of medications, labs, and other supplies. Moxi integrates with clinical programs like Meds-to-Beds and uses mobile manipulation, social intelligence, and human-guided learning to navigate dynamic hospital environments.

## Market Standing
- **Valuation/Market Cap**: Acquired by Serve Robotics in January 2026 at a valuation between $29 million and $34.4 million [cbinsights.com](https://www.cbinsights.com/company/diligent-robotics).
- **Total Funding**: Raised a total of $125.76M prior to acquisition [cbinsights.com](https://www.cbinsights.com/company/diligent-robotics).
- **Notable Investors/Partners**: True Ventures, DNX Ventures, Serve Robotics, AgeTech Collaborative, Physical AI Fellowship, and over 20 other investors [cbinsights.com](https://www.cbinsights.com/company/diligent-robotics).
- **Growth Signals**: 
  - Moxi has delivered 9,900+ labs at UTMB Angleton Danbury [diligentrobots.com](https://www.diligentrobots.com/).
  - Returned 595+ days worth of time to nurses at Mary Washington Healthcare [diligentrobots.com](https://www.diligentrobots.com/).
  - Saved the Pharmacy department at Shannon Health 6,350 hours [diligentrobots.com](https://www.diligentrobots.com/).

## Competitive Advantages
- **Pioneer in Social Robotics**: Founders are leading experts in human-robot interaction, with research roots at MIT, Georgia Tech, and the University of Texas at Austin.
- **Proven Clinical Impact**: Moxi is already deployed in live hospital environments with measurable outcomes (thousands of hours returned to staff, thousands of deliveries completed).
- **Human-Guided Learning**: Unlike simple autonomous vehicles, Moxi uses AI to learn and adapt to dynamic, human-filled hospital settings, making it a true teammate rather than a tool.
- **Acquisition by Serve Robotics**: The acquisition provides a larger platform and resources for scaling, while validating the technology and market fit.

## Strategic Focus
- **Scaling hospital deployments**: Expanding Moxi’s presence in healthcare systems across the U.S., with active roles in Columbus, OH; Chicago, IL; and Rochester, NY [greenhouse.io](http://job-boards.greenhouse.io/diligentrobotics).
- **Deepening clinical integration**: Working with clinical and operations experts to streamline processes, reduce costs, and initiate new revenue opportunities such as centralized telemetry and supply chain.
- **Advancing AI and manipulation**: Continuing to improve mobile manipulation, autonomous navigation, and social intelligence capabilities through R&D.

## Why Work Here
- **Mission-driven culture**: Employees directly contribute to reducing burnout in healthcare by giving nurses and clinicians more time with patients.
- **Cutting-edge technology**: Work on state-of-the-art AI, robotics, and human-robot interaction in a fast-paced startup environment where your work goes live in hospitals today, not years in the future.
- **Collaborative team**: Join a venture-backed, mission-driven team with leading experts in the field.
- **Remote-friendly**: Many roles (e.g., Founding Sr. Data Engineer, ML Engineer, Sr. ML Engineer) are open to candidates anywhere in the US [greenhouse.io](http://job-boards.greenhouse.io/diligentrobotics). On-site roles available in Austin, TX, and field operations roles in various cities.
- **Competitive compensation**: Offers competitive salary, equity, and health plan coverage for individuals and dependents.
- **Diversity & inclusion**: An equal opportunity employer that values diversity and does not discriminate on any basis.

## Sources
1. [diligentrobots.com](https://www.diligentrobots.com/)
2. [diligentrobots.com - About](https://www.diligentrobots.com/about)
3. [diligentrobots.com - Careers](https://www.diligentrobots.com/join-our-team-1)
4. [greenhouse.io - Jobs](http://job-boards.greenhouse.io/diligentrobotics)
5. [cbinsights.com - Diligent Robotics](https://www.cbinsights.com/company/diligent-robotics)

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