Founding Research Scientist

Founding Research Scientist What would you work on if you could help define the research agenda from day one?We’re hiring a Founding Research Scientist to join an ambitious UK Physical AI startup building the models that will enable robots to understand, learn and act in the real world.This is an opportunity to pursue difficult, open-ended research problems without being confined to an established roadmap. You’ll develop new ideas, test them on real robotic systems, and turn promising research into technology that works outside the lab.What’s in it for you?Founding role with significant equityHelp define the research agenda from the ground upWork at the frontier of robot learning, vision-language-action models and world modelsDesign and run experiments on real robotic hardwarePublish meaningful research while building technology with real-world impactWork closely with a small, highly technical founding teamHave genuine ownership over which problems are worth solving and how to approach themWhat you’ll work onLead research across robot learning, world models and VLA systemsDevelop new approaches to model architectures, training and data collectionDesign rigorous evaluation methods for Physical AI systemsTake ideas from first principles and papers through to prototypes and real-world robotic experimentsInvestigate what enables models to generalise across tasks, environments and embodimentsPublish research and help establish the company’s long-term technical directionWhat you’ll bringStrong research experience across machine learning, robotics or computer visionDeep understanding of modern deep learning methodsExcellent mathematical, experimental and problem-solving instinctsHands-on experience training and evaluating ML modelsThe ability to form hypotheses, design experiments and learn quickly from resultsCuriosity for problems where the answers — and sometimes even the right questions — aren’t obviousPublications, benchmarks and open-source contributions are valuable signals, but they aren’t the deciding factor.What matters most is the quality of your research thinking, the problems you choose to pursue, and your ability to turn ideas into experiments that teach us something new.