Robot Learning / Physical AI Lead

About the Company

I'm having early conversations on behalf of a profitable, independent, deep-tech robotics company in London that's about to formally define a senior robot learning/physical AI hire.

About the Role

Nothing is live yet - this is genuine market mapping before a role is built, and I'd love to hear from people who might be a fit whether or not the timing works right now.

No pitch, no vacancy details, just understanding what's out there and what would genuinely move someone right now.

Responsibilities

• Robot Learning, Embodied AI, or Physical AI experience specifically, not general AI or ML engineering. If your background is LLMs, chatbots, or applying AI to software products, that's genuinely valuable work, but it isn't this role.


• Trained models that actually control a physical robot, not just software.


• Taken something that works in simulation and made it survive contact with the real world.


• No robotics or hardware background required, but real, hands-on production experience in reinforcement learning for manipulation, sim-to-real transfer, and domain randomisation for contact-rich tasks. Academic exposure alone isn't enough here.


• Comfortable owning a technical plan and turning strategy into an actual engineering roadmap.

Qualifications

• A PhD or years of industry experience in robotics, RL, or controls is a genuine plus, but not essential if your track record speaks for itself.

Required Skills

• Reinforcement learning for manipulation.


• Sim-to-real transfer.


• Domain randomisation for contact-rich tasks.

• Background in Robot Learning, Embodied AI, or Physical AI.

Pay range and compensation package

Both full-time and part-time/fractional arrangements are being considered, so please don't rule yourself out on that basis alone.