Principal Technical Lead, AI Robotics
External
Anduril · Costa Mesa, CAPrepare for this interview
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About the role
The Anduril Frontier Systems team is building the next generation of robotic platforms for defense and industrial applications. We are a small, high-performing team of roboticists, ML engineers, and systems engineers delivering real-world capability to operators in the field. Our systems operate in unstructured, contested environments where robustness and reliability are non-negotiable. We seek to deliver validated, integrated capabilities to the Department of Defense and the Intelligence Community. We are seeking a senior technical leader to architect and drive the development of our autonomous robotic systems program. You will set the technical direction, own the system architecture, and lead a team of RL engineers, manipulation engineers, perception engineers, and robotics engineers. This is a hands-on technical leadership role - you will write code, review designs, and make consequential technical decisions daily.
Responsibilities
- Define and own the system architecture for autonomous robotic platforms: locomotion, manipulation, perception, teleoperation, and whole-body control
- Lead a team of 8-10 engineers across RL, imitation learning, perception, simulation, and hardware
- Set technical direction for sim-to-real transfer, policy architecture, and whole-body control integration
- Drive milestone execution on an aggressive 6-month delivery timeline
- Make build-vs-buy decisions for hardware platforms, simulation tools, and ML frameworks
- Represent the technical program to leadership, mission partners, and external stakeholders
- Personally contribute to the most critical technical challenges
- REQUIRED QUALIFICATIONS
- 7+ years of experience in robotics, with at least 2 years in a technical leadership role
- Deep expertise in at least one of: reinforcement learning, robot manipulation, legged locomotion, or whole-body control
- Track record of shipping robotic systems that operate in the real world
- Strong software engineering skills (Python, C++)
- Experience leading and growing technical teams (5+ engineers)
- Eligible to obtain and maintain a U.S. Top Secret security clearance
Requirements
- Experience with legged or multi-limbed robotic platforms
- Experience with defense or national security applications
- Publications in top robotics or ML venues
- Prior startup or defense technology experience
- Active U.S. TS/SCI security clearance
- US Salary Range
- $254,000 - $444,000 USD
Benefits
Additional Information
Anduril Industries is a defense technology company with a mission to transform U.S. and allied military capabilities with advanced technology. By bringing the expertise, technology, and business model of the 21st century's most innovative companies to the defense industry, Anduril is changing how military systems are designed, built and sold. Anduril's family of systems is powered by Lattice OS, an AI-powered operating system that turns thousands of data streams into a realtime, 3D command and control center. As the world enters an era of strategic competition, Anduril is committed to bringing cutting-edge autonomy, AI, computer vision, sensor fusion, and networking technology to the military in months, not years.
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