---
title: 'Senior Machine Learning Engineer (Tech Lead), Robot Learning, Loco- Manipulation at Path Robotics'
canonical: 'https://feeny.ai/job/senior-machine-learning-engineer-tech-lead-robot-learning-loco-manipulation-2pqbgth5w4vs'
type: 'job'
last_seen: '2026-09-09'
---

# Senior Machine Learning Engineer (Tech Lead), Robot Learning, Loco- Manipulation at Path Robotics

- **Company:** Path Robotics
- **Location:** Columbus, OH
- **Work type:** remote
- **Posted:** 2026-04-28
- **Last confirmed live:** 2026-09-09
- **Apply:** https://boards.greenhouse.io/pathrobotics/jobs/8527131002?gh_jid=8527131002

## Job description

Build the Path Forward

At Path Robotics, we’re building the future of embodied intelligence. Our AI-driven systems enable robots to adapt, learn, and perform in the real world closing the skilled labor gap and transforming industries. We go beyond traditional methods, combining perception, reasoning, and control to deliver field-ready AI that is risk-aware, reliable, and continuously improving through real-world use.

Big, hard problems are our everyday work, and our team of intelligent, humble, and driven people make the impossible possible together.

We are standing up a new Robot Learning team focused on whole-body loco-manipulation for precision tasks in heavy manufacturing.

We are seeking a Senior Machine Learning Engineer (Tech Lead) for this new team. You write code, set the technical direction, make the architectural decisions the team builds on, mentor junior and intermediate engineers, and help shape how the team works.

## What You’ll Do

- Set the ML technical direction for the team, architectural choices on perception, reasoning, and action generation; training methodology; data strategy; the path from research bet to deployed capability. As one of the first senior hires, you are designing the approach, not extending it.
- Own the architectural workstreams that define the team's research and engineering bets — multiple core build streams across action-policy learning, world-model-based supervision, and policy-orchestration interfaces.
- Design hybrid physics-ML architectures for the integrated loco-manipulation stack. Manipulation, locomotion, and the whole-body control coupling between them are not separable on legged platforms; sub-millimetre continuous-trajectory precision at the tool requires the whole-body controller to compensate for base motion in real time. Today on fixed bases; tomorrow on mobile platforms. The integration is the hard problem; you own its design.
- Own the cross-functional partnerships with hardware teams, domain experts, customer-facing assurance standards, and upstream / downstream teams. Drive a phased deployment strategy that builds production trust over time.
- Mentor and shape the team, guide junior and intermediate ICs across software, ML, robotics, and perception backgrounds; establish code-quality standards, review practices, and engineering norms; help identify and attract next hires. You write code throughout — this is a tech-lead role, not a step away from the work.

## Who You Are

- Ph.D. or Master's degree in Robotics, Mechanical Engineering, Electrical Engineering, Computer Science, or a related field or equivalent experience.
- 5+ years of hands-on robot learning experience. You have shipped sim-to-real policies on real robots, across different tasks or platforms.
- Demonstrated technical leadership and mentorship. You have made architectural decisions on robot learning systems that others built on, and you have meaningfully shaped the development of more-junior engineers as a tech lead. This can be in academia (leading a lab subgroup, advising students) or industry.
- Deep sim-to-real expertise — domain randomisation, system identification, teacher-student distillation, sim-to-online fine-tuning. You can design a transfer strategy for a novel problem.
- Full-stack robot learning — fluent across simulation construction, policy training, data collection, real-world deployment, and failure diagnosis.
- Physics-informed ML or hybrid control experience — PINNs, neural ODEs, MPC with learned dynamics, process-model-conditioned generation, or similar.
- A defensible view on visual-reasoning-centric substrates for grounded spatial / physical reasoning.
- Push-back willingness — you can defend a non-obvious architectural commitment under pressure, and change your mind on evidence.
- Strong programming skills in Python and C++; production-quality code with reproducibility, testing, and maintainability discipline.
- Strong communication skills, able to convey complex technical concepts to a diverse audience.
- Demonstrated independent technical authority — you have set technical direction in a tech-lead capacity, leading a research subgroup, owning an architecture across multiple ICs' work, or making the architectural call on a high-profile project.

Strongly Preferred:

- Edge inference depth (TensorRT, ONNX, edge-class deployment).
- Loco-manipulation experience — locomotion, whole-body control, and manipulation on legged platforms (quadrupeds, humanoids). The coupling between the three is the hard problem; direct hands-on experience or a defensible architectural view both count.
- Precision manipulation or surgical robotics — sub-mm accuracy tasks.
- Flow-matching action-head design at depth — direct experience with the architectural pattern.
- Visual self-supervised representation learning experience on robot or 3D-vision tasks.
- Multi-skill workflow or hierarchical policy design — skill sequencing, failure detection, control mode transitions.
- Experience building ML capability from early stage — first or second ML engineer on a team, or built a research group's infrastructure from scratch.

## Why You’ll Love Working Here

- Daily free lunch to keep you fueled and connected with the team
- Flexible PTO so you can take the time you need, when you need it
- Comprehensive medical, dental, and vision coverage
- 6 weeks fully paid parental leave, plus an additional 6–8 weeks for birthing parents (12–14 weeks total)
- 401(k) retirement plan through Empower
- Generous employee referral bonuses—help us grow our team!

## Who We Are

At Path Robotics we love coming to work to solve interesting and tough challenges but also because our ideas are welcomed and valued. We encourage unique thinking and are dedicated to creating a diverse and inclusive environment. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, gender, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, national origin, genetics, disability, age, or veteran status.

If you require a reasonable accommodation to participate in the application process or any part of the hiring process, please contact HR@path-robotics.com. We are committed to providing equal access and will work with qualified individuals to ensure a fair and accessible hiring experience. We will respond to your request within 48 hours.

## About Path Robotics

## Company Overview
- **One-liner**: Path Robotics builds physical AI systems that enable autonomous robotic welding for heavy industries, addressing the critical skilled labor shortage in manufacturing.
- **Entity Type**: Private (Series D, $271M total funding)
- **Headquarters**: Columbus, Ohio, United States
- **Founded**: 2014
- **Founders**: Andy Lonsberry (CEO) and Alex Lonsberry (CTO)

## Core Business
- **Primary industry**: Industrial robotics, AI-powered manufacturing automation, heavy fabrication
- **Target customers**: B2B, Enterprise — specifically heavy industry, defense, utility & energy, data center construction, and general manufacturing
- **Mission**: Create real value for customers while rebuilding the backbone of American industry by helping manufacturers navigate the skilled labor shortage.

## Products & Services
- **Intelligent Welding Cells**: Fixed robotic cells that use AI and computer vision to see, understand, and adapt to part variations in real-time, enabling autonomous welding without precision fixturing.
- **Obsidian™ AI**: A foundational AI model for welding, trained on tens of millions of welded inches, enabling real-time adaptation for high-quality welds across part-to-part variations.
- **JobBuilder**: A web-based software application launched at FABTECH 2024 that simplifies part programming, reducing the setup bottleneck and expanding the addressable market to fabricators without specialized robotics staff.
- **Path Foundry (RaaS)**: A Robotics-as-a-Service model where Path owns and operates the welding cells, charging customers for welding capacity with $0 CapEx, targeting a 30% lower cost and 4x productivity improvement.
- **Rove**: A mobile welding system mounted on a quadruped platform (announced April 2026), extending adaptive welding capabilities beyond fixed-cell applications.

## Market Standing
- **Valuation/Market Cap**: Not publicly disclosed
- **Key Metric**: $271M total funding raised (Series D, last raised ~2 years ago)
- **Notable Investors/Partners**: Not publicly named in available sources; the company has a Board of Directors and leadership team including a Chief Revenue Officer (Heather Carroll) and EVP of Global Operations (Mike Renn).
- **Growth Signals**: 198 employees as of March 2026; launched Path Foundry RaaS model in October 2024; launched JobBuilder at FABTECH 2024; announced Rove mobile welding system in April 2026; serves 4 key industries (Defense, Data Centers, Utility & Energy, Heavy Industry); addresses a forecasted 600k welder shortage by 2030.

## Competitive Advantages
- **Perception-driven fit-up**: The core differentiator is the ability to recognize part geometry, compensate for dimensional variation, and execute a weld without precision fixturing — a capability traditional robotic welding lacks, which requires tight part consistency.
- **Obsidian™ foundational AI model**: A purpose-built, first-of-its-kind AI model for welding trained on tens of millions of welded inches, enabling continuous learning and real-time adaptation.
- **RaaS model (Path Foundry)**: Eliminates upfront CapEx for customers, lowering adoption barriers for mid-market fabricators who cannot justify six- or seven-figure capital commitments.
- **End-to-end autonomy**: The system handles pick, fit-up, and weld in a single automated flow, with 24/7 mission control support, targeting 4x productivity improvement.

## Strategic Focus
- **Scaling the RaaS model**: Path Foundry is the primary go-to-market strategy, requiring the company to manage fleet maintenance, logistics, service-level guarantees, and asset utilization across a distributed installed base.
- **Expanding addressable geometry**: The Rove mobile platform announcement signals a push beyond fixed-cell applications into more varied and mobile welding environments.
- **Defense and critical infrastructure**: The company is actively targeting defense (shipyards, arsenals), data center construction, and utility/energy sectors as key growth verticals.
- **Reducing programming friction**: JobBuilder aims to lower the barrier to adoption for fabricators without specialized robotics staff, expanding the total addressable market.

## Why Work Here
- **Impactful mission**: The company directly addresses a critical national problem — a forecasted 600,000 welder shortage by 2030 — by building technology that keeps American manufacturing competitive.
- **Cutting-edge technology**: Work at the intersection of AI, machine learning, computer vision, and robotics, building a foundational AI model (Obsidian) trained on tens of millions of welded inches.
- **Collaborative culture**: The company emphasizes "People + Robots Together" and states that "Our people are our competitive advantage," with a focus on creating real customer value.
- **Growth trajectory**: With $271M in funding, 198 employees, and a pivot to a RaaS model, the company is in a high-growth phase with significant runway.
- **Leadership**: Founded and led by brothers Andy Lonsberry (CEO) and Alex Lonsberry (CTO), who have scaled the company from a university basement to a leading physical-AI company.
- **Work environment**: Based in Columbus, Ohio, with a focus on collaborative, passionate teams working on cutting-edge machine learning and impactful real-world problems. The careers page highlights "Impactful," "Collaborative," "AI-Powered," and "Cutting-edge machine learning" as core themes.

## Sources
1. [path-robotics.com](https://www.path-robotics.com/)
2. [path-robotics.com/careers](https://www.path-robotics.com/careers)
3. [path-robotics.com/about](https://www.path-robotics.com/about)
4. [cbinsights.com](https://www.cbinsights.com/company/path-robotics)
5. [robotics.press](https://robotics.press/news/path-robotics-company-profile/)

## Other roles at Path Robotics

- [Welding Engineer - NAVSEA Specialist](https://feeny.ai/job/welding-engineer-navsea-specialist-path-robotics-los-angeles-cbdj2hzf6kj8) — Los Angeles, CA
- [IT Systems Engineer](https://feeny.ai/job/it-systems-engineer-path-robotics-columbus-2jds6z5qcwj1) — Columbus, OH
- [Deployment Engineering Manager](https://feeny.ai/job/deployment-engineering-manager-path-robotics-columbus-fm00qbc71j1h) — Columbus, OH
- [Senior Graphic Designer](https://feeny.ai/job/senior-graphic-designer-path-robotics-columbus-w7nq8bq5bqgn) — Columbus, OH
- [Photographer / Videographer](https://feeny.ai/job/photographer-videographer-path-robotics-columbus-y13k6v02w30m) — Columbus, OH
- [Global Supply Manager](https://feeny.ai/job/global-supply-manager-path-robotics-columbus-fgvm5pb3319h) — Columbus, OH
- [Field Installation Supervisor](https://feeny.ai/job/field-installation-supervisor-path-robotics-columbus-5tn8bqyr1d89) — Columbus, OH
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- [Real-Time Robotics Perception Engineer](https://feeny.ai/job/real-time-robotics-perception-engineer-path-robotics-columbus-b5n9gn78hs04) — Columbus, OH
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