Senior Research Scientist – Vision‑Language‑Action (VLA)

About the role

We are seeking a world‑class Senior Research Scientist to join our R&D hub in Zurich. You will lead the development of Vision‑Language‑Action (VLA) models that enable robots to understand and act in the world with unprecedented generalisation.

Key responsibilities

• Design, implement, and scale VLA models and foundation architectures for robotic manipulation and navigation.
• Develop strategies for multi‑modal data collection, synthetic data generation, and efficient fine‑tuning of large‑scale models.
• Optimize model inference for real‑time robotic applications while preserving reasoning capabilities.
• Publish high‑impact papers at top‑tier conferences such as NeurIPS, CVPR, ICRA, CoRL, etc.
• Collaborate closely with Core Robotics and Hardware teams to integrate AI models into physical platforms.

Required profile

• PhD or Master’s degree in Computer Science, Machine Learning, Robotics, or a related field with a focus on deep learning and computer vision.
• Significant publication record and citations at major conferences (NeurIPS, CVPR, ICCV, ICRA, IROS, CoRL).
• Experience in leading AI research environments.
• Deep expertise in PyTorch or JAX, and familiarity with Transformers, Diffusion Models, and Large Language Models.
• Strong understanding of Vision‑Language models applied to action/control loops in robotics.
• Based in the Zurich area.

Required skills

• PyTorch
• JAX
• Transformers
• Diffusion Models
• Large Language Models (LLMs)

What we offer

• Wellpass gym membership and free meals at the workplace.
• Flexible working hours with the option to work from home when needed.
• Direct collaboration with founders and world‑leading AI experts.
• Access to large‑scale compute clusters and proprietary robotic datasets.
• Competitive compensation and a relocation package for the Zurich area.