Opportunities — master list
Four tracks, one doc. Profile: ~8.5 yrs full-stack robotics (Medra + Zoox), BS MechE (Georgia Tech, 4.0), no MS, 4 patents pending + 1 IEEE paper, US citizen, Bay Area (open to relocate). Wants open-ended, curiosity-driven research — not deployment grind, not pure ML. WLB is a real filter.
Contents: A. Jobs (RE roles) · B. PhD labs · C. Academic fellowships · D. Independent grants · What to do now
Applied ✓ = already submitted. Verify any posting/deadline is still live before acting — the who’s-recruiting/deadline details age fastest.
A. Jobs — Research-Engineer roles
On the experience-bar worry: the roles demanding “many years of lab automation” are the deployment ones (Recursion, Insitro, Xaira, Cellares) being de-prioritized anyway. The research RE roles want robotics/controls/hardware breadth — which your ~8.5 yrs and full-stack depth clear. Where a role lists MS/PhD it’s flagged [stretch]; apply anyway when the skill story beats the degree. Ranked by research-openness × WLB × realistic bar × location.
Apply first
1. Toyota Research Institute — Senior Robotics Research Engineer Applied ✓ (req) · Los Altos CA (some reqs Cambridge MA — verify) · best WLB
Open-ended research, dexterous/contact-rich manipulation, force/tactile, full-stack. Bar: clean (RE track). WLB standout — 4.7/5, four-day-week reports. Publishes; not a product org.
2. Apple — Mechatronics Research Engineer, Special Projects (Robotics) Applied ✓ (req) · Santa Clara
Novel sensing/actuation/control + experimental validation + tactile/haptic. Your F/T characterization, real-time controller, CAD tell one story. Bar: clean (BS+3). WLB team-dependent (~3.6). Special Projects is secretive.
3. Periodic Labs — Research Engineer, Lab Automation Applied ✓ (req · board) · Menlo Park
The one autonomous-lab posting clearing all three filters: open-ended discovery research, Bay Area, exact controls/instrumentation skillset. Physical-science pivot. Bar: clean. WLB unmeasured (fresh $300M seed). Cover-letter answers drafted.
4. Generalist AI — Software Engineer, Robotics Controls Applied ✓ (req) · San Mateo (or Somerville MA)
One real-time control system spanning industrial arms + custom embodiments + a dexterity foundation model — morphology-independent match. Ex-DeepMind/BD founders. Bar: clean. WLB unknown — probe.
5. National Labs — Autonomous / self-driving lab programs (RE / staff-scientist track) · citizen unlock, closest to Medra, best stability/WLB Robotics + ML orchestrating physical experiments — exactly Medra’s shape — plus national-lab hours. Target RE/staff-scientist, not postdoc (PhD-gated).
- Argonne — Assistant Software Engineer, Autonomous Discovery Platforms (MADSci)
Applied ✓(req) — closest single match, but pay is so-so. - LBNL — Automation Engineer / A-Lab
Applied ✓(jobs.lbl.gov, filter EG-Engineering) · Berkeley — Bay Area! - LLNL — Autonomous Labs (llnl.gov/careers) · Livermore — Bay-adjacent!
- PNNL (careers.pnnl.gov) · Richland WA · NREL (nrel.gov/careers) · Golden CO (energy-materials)
- Portal / all 17 labs: nationallabs.org/work-here/careers
6. Apple — Senior Tactile Embedded Controls Research Engineer (req) · Santa Clara Even closer: real-time C/C++, feedback control, sensor/actuator integration, tactile, possible publication — best match to your low-level-controller + force-motion work. Bar: clear (6+ yrs). Same Apple WLB caveat.
7. Honda Research Institute — Robotics Engineer, Manipulation Systems & Deployment Applied ✓ (role) · San Jose
Force/impedance control, tactile + F/T, contact-rich manipulation, VLMs, MuJoCo/Isaac. Bar: [stretch] (MS min) — emailed [email protected] ref P25F02. WLB 3.8.
Strong fit — relocation and/or verify WLB
8. Robotics & AI Institute (RAI) — Research Scientist Applied ✓ (req) · Cambridge MA (relocate)
Accepts BS/MS/PhD + 5 yrs R&D. Fundamental, publication-oriented, physical interaction / grasping / active control. Purest research culture. WLB ~3.6–4.7.
9. Physical Intelligence (π) — Robotics Research Engineer Applied ✓ (req) · SF (100% in-person)
Near-perfect fit: general-purpose policies across hardware, data collection, rigorous experiments. Bar: clean. WLB the open risk — most intense lab in the space. Answers drafted.
10. DeepMind — Research Engineer, Robotics Applications Applied ✓ (req) · Mountain View
Full-stack + VLA (Gemini Robotics), RE track. Less purely research than TRI/RAI/Apple — partner-support + 25% travel.
11. Sunday Robotics — ML Research / Systems / Firmware (board) · Redwood City Founded by the ACT + Diffusion Policy authors. Research-dense, novel data-engine. Some ops gravity.
12. FieldAI — Senior Research Engineer, Humanoid Manipulation (req) · Boston (relocate) Live “embodiment-agnostic foundation model” role. Bar: clean (BS accepted). WLB 4.1/5 (14 reviews).
Reach (bar is a real stretch, skill story aligned)
13. NVIDIA — Senior Robotics Research Engineer, Robotics & AI for Drug Discovery (req) · Santa Clara Most differentiated: wet-lab automation + contact-rich manipulation + F/T + VLA + experimental biology in one posting. Bar: [stretch] (PhD-or-equiv). WLB 4.1 co-wide.
14. Radical AI — Perception Engineer (req) · Brooklyn NYC (relocate) · $175–225k Near-bullseye JD (ROS2, C++, industrial integration; VLA + lab-automation nice-to-haves). WLB 4.2/5. Caveat: robotics = reliability layer.
15. Xaira Therapeutics — Senior Automation Engineer (req) · South SF · $152–190k Bay Area, biology-adjacent, best-funded. But JD reads deployment. Safe fallback, not a passion fit.
Watchlist (from old bookmark list)
- Intrinsic (Alphabet)
Applied ✓(careers) — force/sensor-control fit, but folding into Google → reorg risk; applied/industrial. - OpenAI robotics
Applied ✓(search) — RSE / Controls / FDRE (answers drafted). - Atomic Machines (role) / Atomic Semi (board) — hardware-deep, physical-science-adjacent.
- Innate (board) — small robotics startup.
- Waymo — Sensing Systems Engineer, New Platforms (role) — AV-adjacent, leverages Zoox sensing/PHY.
Skip / caution
Meta FAIR (2026 turmoil) · Figure / Tesla Optimus / 1X (deployment + grind; 1X WLB 2.5) · Lila Sciences (Flagship/Moderna intensity, Cambridge) · Chemify (culture 2.5, robotics seat Glasgow) · Recursion (SLC + deployment + layoffs) · Insitro (deployment + politics, no open req) · Multiply Labs / Cellares (GMP manufacturing grind) · Dexterity / Nimble / Ambi (warehouse) · Scale AI (WLB 2.9) · Emerald Cloud Lab (Austin, ops only) · Covariant / Sanctuary / K-Scale (dead or dying).
B. PhD — computational design of robots
The vision: invent/optimize the right robot form for a task and control it — generative/evolved morphology (1), reconfigurable/modular bodies (2), on-the-fly tool creation & attachment (3), morphology+control co-design (4). Both offline discovery and online deployment. Hardware preferred, optional. Not pure-ML/VLA.
Three mechanics: (a) US PhDs are fall-start (apply ~Dec 2026 → Fall 2027); international programs run rolling/twice-yearly, so a spring-2027 start is realistic abroad. (b) The master’s gate — continental Europe (CH/NL/DE/NO/DK) and Japanese national universities require a completed master’s; the US, UK, Canada, Australia, Singapore, Hong Kong, CUHK-Shenzhen, OIST admit direct from a BS. For gated dream-labs, the workaround is a salaried pre-doc / research-engineer role (no master’s, your record fits). (c) Email the PI first — a funded slot needs a professor’s yes before the formal app. Lead with F/T-from-first-principles + real-time controller + analytic IK: the “evolve-then-build” muscle these design labs lack. Faculty read best Aug–Oct.
B1. No master’s required — apply straight from your BS
Tags: [dirs hit] · hardware/sim · admission.
1. Fumiya Iida — Bio-Inspired Robotics, Cambridge (UK) — top pick: best fit AND accessible [1,2,3,4] · hardware+sim · no master’s, Oct/Jan/Apr intakes (spring-2027 feasible). Morphological computation, robot evolution, self-reconfiguration, “machines that build machines.” Wants “design, control, modeling of real-world robots” = you. lab · [email protected]
2. Sam Kriegman — Northwestern (US) — junior, hungry, needs your hardware muscle [1,4]+2 · sim→now physical · US cycle. Generative/evolved robots (xenobots → evolved modular robots “born to run”). His sim→build pivot is exactly the gap a real-time-controls person fills. NSF CAREER 2025. lab
3. Robert MacCurdy — CU Boulder, MACLab (US) — most systems/fabrication; strong odds [1,4] · hardware-real (synthesize→evaluate→fabricate) · US cycle. Design-synthesis + digital fabrication — “robots that walk out of the printer.” Lipson lineage. Software↔hardware seam = your edge, less over-subscribed. lab · [email protected]
4. Cynthia Sung — UPenn, Sung Robotics Lab (US) — plays to your analytic-IK/mechanism side [2,3,4] · hardware+sim · US cycle. Computational design + fabrication of origami/folding/reconfigurable robots. Rus lineage; accessible advising. lab · [email protected]
5. Rebecca Kramer-Bottiglio — Yale, The Faboratory (US) — best match to your “just-in-time” axis [2,3] · hardware/materials · US cycle. Robotic skins — wrap a passive object to instantiate a robot on the fly. Your online tool-attachment idea, physical. lab · [email protected]
6. Mark Yim — UPenn, ModLab (US) — canonical modular hardware; calmer advising [2] · hardware-first · US cycle. Reference lab for modular self-reconfigurable robots (SMORES-EP). Embedded/controls/mech person is native. lab · [email protected]
7. Boyuan Chen — Duke, General Robotics Lab (US) — full-stack body+brain, wants builders [4] · real hardware (Duke Humanoid) · US cycle. Co-designs body + brain; self-modeling. Lipson lineage, junior, wants people who ship controllers. lab · [email protected]
8. Hod Lipson — Columbia, Creative Machines Lab (US) — origin node; re-approach carefully [1,2,3,4] · hardware+sim · US cycle. Evolutionary robotics, particle/reconfigurable robots, self-modeling. You emailed last year, no reply — re-approach only with a specific recent-paper hook or a student intro. lab
9. David Howard — CSIRO (Australia) — literal thesis match [1,4]+2 · sim + 3D-printed/soft hardware · rolling, enrol via partner uni (QUT/UNSW/Adelaide). “Evolution of form,” embodied co-design. Caveat: Australian entry wants honours/master’s or a research-equivalence case (arguable from your 8.5 yrs). profile
10. Tin Lun Lam — Freeform Robotics, CUHK-Shenzhen — freeform self-reconfiguration [2,3] · hardware · English, direct-PhD from BS, Sept (+some Jan), funded. FreeBOT — modules connect at arbitrary points, reconfigure into arbitrary shapes. Caveat: Shenzhen (mainland), not HK island. lab
11. Cecilia Laschi — Soft Robotics Lab, NUS (Singapore) — co-design, fast intakes [4]+1 · hardware (soft) · English, direct-PhD from BS, Aug + Jan, funded. Octopus/trunk soft robots; explicit holistic co-design. profile
12. Frank Hammond III — Georgia Tech, ARM Lab (US) — warm connection: you took his Mechatronics class [3,4] · hardware+optimization · US cycle. Xenomorphic manipulation hardware, extra-limb augmentation, design synthesis. A former-student re-intro is far stronger than a cold email — one of your best leads despite list position. lab · [email protected]
13. Josh Bongard — UVM, MEC Lab (US) — already in contact; approachable; sim [1,4] · software/sim · US cycle. Evolutionary robotics, generative design, xenobots. You’ve spoken; he may reply. Lower-key WLB (Burlington); hardware itch partly unscratched. lab · [email protected]
Also no-master’s, narrower/adjacent: Nikolaus Correll (CU Boulder — robotic materials [2]) · Jessica Burgner-Kahrs (Toronto — evolutionary continuum/reconfigurable [2,4]) · Jonathan Rossiter (Bristol UK — soft/morphological computation; FARSCOPE CDT Sept-only) · Rob Scharff (HKUST — soft design/fab, HK proper) · Domenico Campolo (NTU Singapore [4]) · Andy Tyrrell (York UK — evolvable hardware) · Kirstin Petersen (Cornell — collective/swarm [2]) · Daniela Rus / Wojciech Matusik (MIT) — dream-fit but very competitive/hands-off, stretch targets · OIST wildcard (best admission model — English, twice-yearly, BS-entry, funded — but units are topic-adjacent).
B2. Master’s required — dream-fit but gated (do an MSc, OR ask for a pre-doc/RE bridge)
For each, ask the PI about a salaried research-engineer / pre-doc role (rolling, no master’s, your record fits).
- Josie Hughes — CREATE Lab, EPFL (CH) [1,2,4] — lab is literally “Computational Robot Design & Fabrication”; open positions now incl. generative design. EDRS deadlines Apr 15 & Dec 15. openings · [email protected]
- A.E. (Guszti) Eiben — VU Amsterdam (NL) [1] — world leader on physically evolving robots (Autonomous Robot Evolution). Rolling salaried. profile
- Kyrre Glette / Tønnes Nygaard — U Oslo (NO) [1,2,4] — real-world evolved + reconfigurable robots (offline discovery and physical deployment = your combo). Salaried, rolling. profile
- Robert Katzschmann — ETH Zürich (CH) [4] — soft/musculoskeletal + dexterous co-design; constantly hiring. lab · [email protected]
- Cosimo Della Santina — TU Delft (NL) [4] — model-based control + co-design of elastic robots (your first-principles strength). site
- Dario Floreano — LIS, EPFL (CH) [1,4] · Auke Ijspeert — BioRob, EPFL [2] · Akio Ishiguro — Tohoku (JP) [2,4] decentralized modular · Kohei Nakajima — U Tokyo (JP) [4] morphological computation theory · Kasper Stoy — ITU Copenhagen (DK) [1,2] · Christoph Keplinger — MPI-IS Stuttgart (DE) [1,4]-adjacent (HASEL actuators).
People to talk to (not advisors): Andrew Spielberg (MorphoAI, [email protected]) · Jie Xu / Tsun-Hsuan Wang (RoboGrammar/SoftZoo lineage, industry).
Outreach: Re-email Lipson only with a specific-paper hook or student intro. Re-email Bongard warm (you’ve talked). Continental dream-labs: open with “do you have a research-engineer / pre-doc opening?” Lead every email with the F/T/real-time/analytic-IK record + resume site.
C. Academic fellowships (US-citizen levers)
A portable fellowship makes any US advisor’s “yes” cheap — worth more to you than most because it offsets a thin publication record. Target these in fall 2026 alongside PhD apps. (Fund US programs; international PhDs are salaried, so no fellowship needed there.)
- NSF GRFP — eligible as a returning (never-enrolled) applicant; ~$37k/yr ×3; deadline ~late Oct 2026. One shot — take it. Your crisp, unusual research vision is an edge in the essays.
- Hertz Fellowship — up to $250k / 5 yrs; requires enrolling in a US PhD in applied sciences; opens ~late Aug, closes ~late Oct 2026. Patents + real-systems profile is Hertz-flavored. who can apply
- NDSEG (DoD, ~Dec) and DOE CSGF (~mid-Jan; fits the national-lab angle if the work leans computational).
D. Independent / exploratory grants
Fund a concrete idea or you, outside an institution. Most are small ($5–50k) — plenty for prototyping/writing, not a full hardware lab; the deep-tech tier funds real building. You’re a strong fit here — these reward a crisp legible idea + demonstrated ability to build (your patents + shipped systems), not publications.
D1. Fast grants — pursue now
- Emergent Ventures (Mercatus / Tyler Cowen) — best fit-to-openness; send this week. Zero-to-one moonshots, any field, no credential/affiliation. ~100k (most ~$50k). Rolling, famously fast. Sell the morphology vision + builder record. apply
- Foresight Institute — AI for Science & Safety grants — 100k; quarterly, next deadline Sept 30 2026. Frame around the generative/sim design engine (not the bench). grants
- IFP — The Launch Sequence RFP (the link you had) — $10k honorarium to publish a fundable project plan + access to their funder network; rolling; robotics explicitly in scope. Use as a lever to sharpen the vision. rfp
- Queue for next cycle: Astera Residency (salary 1.5M budget, no PhD, Emeryville — strongest structural match, between cohorts → set alert) · O’Shaughnessy Fellowships ($100k, annual, 2026 closed → 2027).
D2. Deep-tech / hardware — for actually building
- Activate Fellowship / Cyclotron Road (LBNL) — best deep-tech fit. 2-yr fellowship: 100k R&D** + benefits, embedded at a national lab. No PhD, no company required. Berkeley hub. Apply Sept–Oct 2026 → 2027 cohort. Frame morphology-design as a productizable platform. fellowship · apply
- Speculative Technologies — “Brains” (Ben Reinhardt) — ARPA-style robotics/manufacturing program incubator; ~15-wk. Next cohort ~Oct 2026. Frame patents + first-principles work as PhD-equivalent. brains
- ARIA — Smarter Robot Bodies seed — up to £500k, international-eligible, thematically perfect; rolling seed deadline 31 Jul 2026 (imminent), but wants a project vehicle (startup/team) → this cycle a long-shot EOI, next window the real shot. funding
- Convergent Research (FROs) — propose or join a Focused Research Organization as founding engineer (institution-building, not fund-my-prototype). about
- Skip (ineligible/closed for you): Thiel (age ≤22) · 1517 Medici (students) · Schmidt Sciences / AI2050 (PhD-gated) · DARPA YFA/Risers (need institution) · Manifund / LTFF / Cosmos (AI-safety-gated — only if the vision genuinely carries a safety angle) · Homeworld / XPRIZE (off-domain) · ARPA-E OPEN (not currently open; needs an energy thesis).
Cross-cutting — what to do now
- Jobs: pipeline is full (most of Track A applied). It’s only been days — first replies typically take 1–3 weeks; the silence means nothing yet.
- This week (low-friction, compounding): Emergent Ventures application (rolling, ~$50k, fast) + email Fumiya Iida, Sam Kriegman, and Frank Hammond (warm — you took his class). A funded EV prototype write-up doubles as PhD-application material and a second publication.
- By Sept 30: Foresight AI-for-Science grant.
- Fall 2026: NSF GRFP + Hertz (deadlines cluster late Oct); Activate + Speculative Tech “Brains” (~Sept–Oct); US PhD apps (~Dec).
- Continental dream-labs (EPFL CREATE, Oslo, VU): email now asking about a research-engineer / pre-doc opening to sidestep the master’s gate.
Sources: codex draft + background-agent sweeps (robot-learning startups, industrial/national labs, AI-for-science, PhD labs ×3 regions, independent grants ×2 tiers), July 2026. Old bookmark list: Opportunites. Status tags reflect what you’ve told me; verify every posting/deadline is live before acting.