Legged Robotics Software and Autonomy Engineer

Position Summary

IHMC is seeking a Software and Autonomy Robotics research engineer to join the Robotics Team, working closely with the autonomy group to tackle core challenges in humanoid and legged robotics on platforms such as Alex. In this role, you will develop autonomous and semi-autonomous capabilities for robots operating in complex, real-world environments, with a focus on building exploration, semantic scene understanding, and human-machine teaming.

As part of a leading research institute, you will collaborate with a multidisciplinary team to design and integrate state-of-the-art solutions across perception, planning, and control. Your work will contribute to advancing robots capable of operating in unstructured urban environments, leveraging IHMC’s behavior architecture and extending it with modern learning-based methods.

Responsibilities

  • Develop and deploy autonomous and semi-autonomous behaviors for humanoid and legged robots in both simulation and real-world settings.
  • Integrate perception systems for semantic understanding, including scene interpretation and object-level reasoning.
  • Build and evaluate motion planning, trajectory generation, and decision-making pipelines for navigation and loco-manipulation tasks.
  • Integrate vision-language-action (VLA) models and multimodal AI systems for high-level task execution.
  • Contribute to natural, language-based human-robot interaction for intuitive task specification and collaboration.
  • Collaborate across perception, controls, and systems teams to deploy end-to-end autonomy stacks on hardware.
  • Participate in robot testing, debugging, and field deployments.

Required Summary

  • Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in Computer Science, Robotics, Computer Engineering, or a related field.
  • Proficiency in Java, Python, or similar programming languages, with demonstrated project experience.
  • Experience leveraging AI tools to accelerate software development and improve engineering workflows.
  • Experience developing robotics software in Linux environments.
  • Strong understanding of robotics fundamentals, including kinematics, dynamics, and control.
  • Familiarity with vision-language-action (VLA) models or multimodal AI systems.
  • Experience with ROS 2 and distributed robotic systems.
  • Experience with Git and modern collaborative software development practices (e.g., code reviews, CI/CD workflows).

Preferred Qualifications

  • Experience with reinforcement learning frameworks for robotics (e.g., PPO or similar methods).
  • Experience with semantic perception, scene understanding, or 3D vision systems.
  • Experience with motion planning frameworks and loco-manipulation.
  • Familiarity with simulation platforms such as IsaacSim or similar tools.
  • Background in human-robot interaction, including natural language interfaces.
  • Experience deploying and testing algorithms on real robotic hardware.

Why work at IHMC?

The robotics lab is an exciting place to work! We have researchers from all over the world, including TU Delft, ETH Zurich, MIT, Berkeley, Olin College, Notre Dame, Georgia Tech, Florida Tech, Embry Riddle, RIT, USC, UWF and UF. Having so many minds crammed into one building makes for some interesting conversation, amusing antics, and fun activities to blow off some steam. Our team makes it a priority to have paintball days, barbecues, sailing trips in Pensacola Bay, beach days, dress up dares, happy hours, and learning lunches.

Pensacola is a great place to live! The weather is (almost) always perfect for outdoor activities like sailing on the bay, volleyball on the white sand beaches, kayaking on Blackwater River, or camping right by the waves. The lab is located in Downtown Pensacola, surrounded by tasty restaurants, art museums, concert venues, farmers markets, and food trucks. Pensacola thrives on never-ending music, dining, dancing and cultural diversity located right at your fingertips. You’ll love it here!

This is for a full-time, paid position in Pensacola, Florida. You must be authorized or able to gain authorization to work in the United States.

Application Instructions

To apply for this position, please email the following materials to robotjobs@ihmc.org with the subject line “Software and Autonomy Engineer – YourLastName”:

  1. Current Resume: Submit in PDF format. Please name your file: “YourLastName_Resume.pdf”.
  2. Cover Letter: Submit in PDF format. Please name your file: “YourLastName_CoverLetter.pdf”. In your cover letter, please address:
    • Your specific interest in this role at IHMC.
    • How your qualifications and experience align with the position requirements.
    • Optionally, provide links to relevant materials such as a personal website, GitHub profile, project portfolio, or videos demonstrating your work.
  3. Download this Pre-Interview Questionnaire.pdf, complete and sign the form (typed signature will not be accepted) and attach it. Name your file: “YourLastName_Questionnaire.pdf
  4. Professional References: Provide the names, email addresses, and phone numbers (work or cell) for three (3) professional references within your cover letter or resume.

Applications will be considered incomplete until all requested materials (Resume, Cover Letter including References) are submitted according to the specified format.

Questions regarding this position can be directed to robotjobs@ihmc.org.