Reinforcement Learning (RL) Engineer, Manipulation

Humanoid is the first AI and robotics company in the UK, creating the world’s most advanced, reliable, commercially scalable, and safe humanoid robots. Our first humanoid robot HMND 01 is a next-gen labour automation unit, providing highly efficient services across various use cases, starting with industrial applications.

Our Mission
At Humanoid we strive to create the world’s leading, commercially scalable, safe, and advanced humanoid robots that seamlessly integrate into daily life and amplify human capacity.

Vision
In a world where artificial intelligence opens up new horizons, our faith in its potential unveils a new outlook where, together, humans and machines build a new future filled with knowledge, inspiration, and incredible discoveries. The development of a functional humanoid robot underpins an era of abundance and well-being where poverty will disappear, and people will be able to choose what they want to do. We believe that providing a universal basic income will eventually be a true evolution of our civilization.

Solution
As the demands on our built environment rise, labour shortages loom. With the world’s workforce increasingly moving away from undesirable tasks, the manufacturing, construction, and logistics industries critical to our daily lives are left exposed. By deploying our general-purpose humanoid robots in environments deemed hazardous or monotonous, we envision a future where human well-being is safeguarded while closing the gaps in critical global labour needs.

What You’ll Do
Train language-vision conditioned manipulation policies via reinforcement learning (RL) in simulation and in the real world. Construct challenging and diverse suites of manipulation tasks in simulation. Partner with teleoperations to collect trajectories in simulation for behaviour cloning. Partner with testing and operations to establish real-world RL training pipelines. Experiment with various ways of bringing policies trained in simulation to the real world.

We’re Looking For
3+ years building deep-learning systems (industry or research) with shipped models or published artifacts to show for it. Hands-on with at least one of: LLMs, VLMs, or image/video generative models — architecture, training, and inference. Experience solving real problems using reinforcement learning with deep neural networks in any domain. Strong Python + PyTorch/JAX; you can profile, debug numerics, and write maintainable research code. You are self-driven, pro-active, communicate efficiently, document experiments clearly and communicate trade-offs crisply.

Nice to have
Experience with simulators for robotics (Isaac Sim, MuJoCo etc.). Experience in RL for robotics. Experience building infrastructure for large-scale RL (e.g. using ray). Publications at ICLR/ICML/NeurIPS or equivalent open-source contributions. Familiarity with OpenVLA, Physical Intelligence (π) models, or similar open VLA frameworks.

What We Offer
Competitive salary plus participation in our Stock Option Plan. Paid vacation with adjustments based on your location to comply with local labour laws, and additional paid sick leave days. Travel opportunities to our Vancouver and Boston offices. Office perks: free breakfasts, lunches, snacks, and regular team events. Freedom to influence the product and own key initiatives. Collaboration with top-tier engineers, researchers, and product experts in AI and robotics. Startup culture prioritising speed, transparency, and minimal bureaucracy.

How to Apply
Does this role sound like the perfect fit for you? Fill in the form and include links or files that showcase the best of what you’ve built and achieved.