---
title: 'Senior Simulation Engineer at Lab37'
canonical: 'https://feeny.ai/job/senior-simulation-engineer-lab37-pittsburgh-xmnexr08t7tx'
type: 'job'
last_seen: '2026-09-08'
---

# Senior Simulation Engineer at Lab37

- **Company:** Lab37
- **Location:** Pittsburgh, PA
- **Posted:** 2026-08-12
- **Last confirmed live:** 2026-09-08
- **Apply:** https://job-boards.greenhouse.io/lab37/jobs/8697419002

## Job description

## Who we are

Lab37 Robotics is a technology company focused on the development and deployment of robots designed specifically for direct-to-customer food production. Our mission is to revolutionize the food industry by creating innovative robotic solutions that enhance efficiency, quality, and customer satisfaction. We are passionate about pushing the boundaries of technology to deliver cutting-edge products that meet the evolving needs of our industry.

## About the role

Lab37 is hiring an industrial engineer specializing in discrete-event simulation to optimize robotic food-production systems. You will model end-to-end production flow (including equipment, labor, material movement, queues, capacity, and operating policies) to identify bottlenecks, evaluate system designs, and guide capital and operational decisions. Beginning with our Bowl Builder and expanding across the full kitchen, your models will help teams understand tradeoffs and make confident decisions about what to build next.

You will own the technical direction for industrial-engineering simulation at Lab37, including choosing tools, setting modeling standards, conducting time studies, characterizing empirical inputs, validating models against operating data, and integrating simulation into product and operations planning. Working closely with our hardware, robotics, and operations teams in Pittsburgh, you will turn complex physical systems into trusted decision-making tools. This is a senior/staff-level individual contributor role with the opportunity to establish a capability central to how Lab37 designs, tests, deploys, and operates its systems.

## What you'll do

Industrial engineering and simulation

- Build discrete-event simulation models of the Bowl Builder and broader kitchen systems, representing equipment, labor, material flow, queues, buffers, failures, and operating policies under realistic demand.
- Map production processes, conduct time studies, and characterize stochastic inputs—including order arrivals, cycle and setup times, failures and repairs, driver arrivals, demand, and labor variability—from operational data.
- Extend models from a single robot to end-to-end, multi-station kitchen flow, including prep, fulfillment, labor, material movement, queues, and buffers.
- Evaluate commercial platforms such as AnyLogic and Simio alongside SimPy, Arena, and in-house approaches; consolidate existing efforts and establish modeling standards.
- Validate models against operational results and telemetry, including known gaps in sensor fidelity, so predictions are accurate and trusted enough to guide decisions.

What-if analysis and decision support

- Conduct capacity planning, bottleneck analysis, line balancing, equipment sizing, and facility-layout studies.
- Evaluate workflow, staffing, shift, buffer, and operating-policy alternatives that are costly or risky to test live, and set performance requirements for proposed robots and modules.
- Quantify throughput, cycle time, work in process, utilization, yield, downtime, service level, and cost tradeoffs; use the results to recommend kitchen configurations and process improvements.

Cross-functional collaboration

- Partner closely with operations, manufacturing, hardware, and robotics engineering to ground models in how systems actually behave and feed results back into design and operating decisions.
- Translate simulation and industrial-engineering findings into clear, decision-ready recommendations.
- Communicate complex modeling to technical and non-technical stakeholders, with explicit assumptions, uncertainty, and operational implications.

## What we are looking for

- Bachelor's or advanced degree in Industrial Engineering or Operations Research is required; related quantitative degrees considered with substantial operations-simulation experience.
- 3+ years of relevant experience in industrial engineering, operations research, manufacturing systems, or discrete-event simulation.
- Hands-on discrete-event simulation experience (e.g., AnyLogic, Simio, SimPy, Arena, or custom engines), plus deep knowledge of production systems, process flow, queueing, capacity analysis, line balancing, time studies, and design of experiments. This is the core of the role.
- Track record of models that drove equipment, process, facility, staffing, or operational decisions.
- Ability to model complex, constraint-driven production systems end to end and validate them against imperfect real-world data.
- Working proficiency in Python and SQL sufficient to build, analyze, and maintain simulation models and tooling.
- Ability to partner directly with operations, manufacturing, hardware, and robotics engineers and communicate assumptions, uncertainty, and recommendations.

Desirable Skills

- Experience applying industrial-engineering methods in manufacturing, automation, fulfillment, food production, or other high-throughput operations.
- Experience building digital twins of physical production or manufacturing systems.
- Experience with facility layout, material handling, labor modeling, staffing, or ergonomic analysis.
- Experience working with real-time operational or telemetry data in production environments.
- Experience in food service, on-demand delivery, or just-in-time manufacturing systems.

## Why join us

- Demand for online food delivery is growing really fast! In the last 5 years, just in the US, the overall market has expanded 10X from $10B to $100B, and could expand to $500bn- $1T by 2030.
- Changing the restaurant industry: You’ll be part of a team that helps restaurants succeed in online food delivery.
- Collaborative environment: You will receive support and guidance from experienced colleagues and managers, helping you to learn, grow and achieve your goals, and you’ll work closely with other teams to ensure our customer’s success.

What else you need to know

This role is based in our Pittsburgh office. As a company driven by invention and continuous change - we are constantly reimagining our industries, building new products, and refining how we operate. We do our best work together. That’s why all of our office-based teams work onsite, five days a week.

The base salary range for this role is $158,000 - $218,000 per year.

Actual compensation will be determined on an individual basis and may vary depending on experience, skills, and qualifications.

Base salary is just one part of your total rewards package. You may also be eligible for equity awards and an annual performance-based bonus.

Benefits Summary (USA Full-Time Exempt Employees):

- Medical, dental, and vision insurance (multiple plans, incl. HSA options).
- Company-paid life and disability insurance (short- and long-term).
- Voluntary insurance: accident, critical illness, hospital indemnity.
- Optional supplemental life insurance for self, spouse, and children.
- Pet insurance discount.
- 401(k).
- Health Savings Account (HSA)
- Flexible Spending Accounts (Healthcare, Dependent Care, Commuter)
- Time Off policies:
- Discretionary vacation days
- 8 paid holidays per year
- Paid sick time
- Paid Bereavement leave
- Paid Parental Leave

Benefits are subject to change at the company's discretion. Atoms accepts applications on an ongoing basis.

Ready to join us as we serve those who serve others?

#LI-Onsite

## About Lab37

## Company Overview
- **One-liner**: Lab37 builds robotic kitchen systems that automate food assembly, starting with the Bowl Builder for makeline operations, to help restaurants reduce labor, increase throughput, and deliver consistent quality at scale.
- **Entity Type**: Private (subsidiary of City Storage Systems; no disclosed funding rounds)
- **Headquarters**: Warrendale, PA (near Pittsburgh, PA)
- **Founded**: 2005 (founding team formed at Carnegie Mellon's Robotics Institute, lab G37)
- **Founders**: Not publicly named (founding team from CMU Robotics Institute)

## Core Business
- Primary industry: Food robotics / kitchen automation / food service technology
- Target customers: B2B – restaurants, ghost kitchens, food businesses (enterprise and multi-location operators)
- Mission: "Use technology to improve the physical world in ways people can feel" and "build robots for better food" – making high-quality, affordable food accessible to everyone through automation.

## Products & Services
- **[Bowl Builder](https://www.lab37.us/)**: A robotic makeline system that automates the assembly of bowls and similar meals. It handles live order assembly from bowl dispense to bag close, adapts to customizations (adding/removing ingredients, allergens, portion adjustments), and claims up to 50% labor savings while doubling output. Type: Hardware (robotic kitchen equipment) with integrated software.

## Market Standing
- **Valuation/Market Cap**: Not disclosed (subsidiary of City Storage Systems, a private holding company)
- **Key Metric**: Already deployed in commercial kitchens, serving thousands of customers weekly (as of June 2026)
- **Notable Investors/Partners**: City Storage Systems (parent company); sister companies include CloudKitchens, Otter, and Picnic. No external investors publicly listed.
- **Growth Signals**: Active hiring across multiple engineering roles; expanding from initial product (Bowl Builder) into broader kitchen ecosystem; rapid iteration capability (whiteboard to prototype in hours); real-world commercial deployments.

## Competitive Advantages
- **Full-stack R&D under one roof**: In-house fabrication shop, electrical engineering lab, testing facilities, and R&D kitchen enable rapid prototyping and iteration.
- **Ecosystem integration**: As part of City Storage Systems, Lab37 works alongside CloudKitchens (ghost kitchen infrastructure), Otter (restaurant tech), and Picnic (food automation) – creating a vertically integrated automation stack for food businesses.
- **Data-driven tuning**: Every gram, step, and variable is tracked and refined, allowing precision and consistency at scale.
- **Proven real-world impact**: Systems already operating in commercial kitchens, not just prototypes.

## Strategic Focus
- Scale Bowl Builder adoption across multi-location restaurant groups.
- Expand the kitchen ecosystem with additional robotic modules and software.
- Continue to reduce labor dependency and operational chaos for food businesses.
- Leverage data from real kitchens to improve automation algorithms.

## Why Work Here
- **Engineering freedom**: "Whiteboard to working prototype in hours" – engineers build, test, and iterate with their own hands in a maker's paradise (full fabrication shop, electrical lab, testing facilities).
- **Immediate impact**: Work is deployed in real kitchens serving thousands of customers weekly; employees see their work making a difference quickly.
- **Culture**: Described as a place where "culinary innovation meets world class engineering" – cross-disciplinary collaboration between robotics, software, hardware, and culinary teams.
- **Locations**: Warrendale, PA and Pittsburgh, PA (on-site roles). No explicit remote/hybrid policy stated.
- **Perks**: Not detailed publicly, but the facility includes a fully equipped R&D kitchen, modern fabrication shop, and engineering offices built for rapid innovation.

## Sources
1. [lab37.us](https://www.lab37.us/) – Main site with product and company overview
2. [lab37.us/careers](https://www.lab37.us/careers) – Careers page with culture and mission
3. [lab37.us/lab](https://www.lab37.us/lab) – Lab facilities and ecosystem description
4. [lab37.us/history-timeline](https://www.lab37.us/history-timeline) – Company history and founding story
5. [lab37.breezy.hr](https://lab37.breezy.hr/) – Job openings and locations

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