Senior Software Engineer, Robot Dynamics & Simulation Tools
Los Altos, CA
Large Behavior Models – Large Behavior Models /
Full-time /
Hybrid
At Toyota Research Institute (TRI), we’re on a mission to improve the quality of human life. We’re developing new tools and capabilities to amplify the human experience. To lead this transformative shift in mobility, we’ve built a world-class team in Energy & Materials, Human-Centered AI, Human Interactive Driving, and Robotics.
The Mission
Make general-purpose robots a reality.
The Challenge
We envision a future where robots assist with household chores and cooking, aid the older population in maintaining their independence, and enable people to spend more time on the activities they enjoy most. To achieve this, robots need to be able to operate reliably in messy, unstructured environments. Our mission is to answer the question “What will it take to create truly general-purpose robots that can accomplish a wide variety of tasks in settings like human homes with minimal human supervision?”. We believe that the answer lies in cultivating large-scale datasets of physical interaction from a variety of sources and building on the latest advances in machine learning to learn general-purpose robot behaviors from this data.
Robotics
The mission of TRI Robotics is to invent and prove new robotic capabilities required to enable home robots to solve the challenges faced by an aging society. As part of that mission, we are developing a sophisticated suite of open source robotics software called Drake (https://drake.mit.edu), for use in our internal robotics projects and the wider community of advanced robotics researchers.
Team
Within TRI Robotics, the Dynamics and Simulation team develops Drake tools to model and simulate mobile robot dynamics, object manipulation, and perception. We emphasize physical accuracy and robust, performant software permitting controller synthesis, learning, analysis, regression testing, and design in simulation that transfers importantly to the real world. Features include:
- Physics-based, high-fidelity, high-performance software tools for simulation of robots and vehicles interacting with their environments.
- Multibody dynamics, rigid and soft body computational mechanics.
- A unique hybrid dynamic system abstraction and infrastructure (like Simulink blocks, but differentiable and symbolically analyzable).
- Solvers for dynamic systems (numerical integration of DAEs, time stepping, event handling).
- Computational geometry and contact response (emphasizing manipulation).
- Validation of simulation accuracy and verification of software and numerical methods.
This is open-source, modern C++ software, developed using rigorous standard methodologies, including extensive unit and validation tests, and collaborative pre-merge peer review. We encourage publication of novel work in peer-reviewed literature and collaboration with the wider robotics community.
We are looking for someone to help us move this software forward. The right candidate loves to program and enjoys the intricacies of crafting correct, appealing, and performant advanced C++ code as part of a similarly-devoted team. The team consists of computer scientists and engineers trained at leading academic institutions and innovative companies, with research and practical experience in robotics, computer graphics, computational geometry and mechanics, multibody dynamics, numerical methods, and software engineering. We have considerable expertise in all these fields and a lot of software to write, so there is much interesting work to do and plenty of opportunity to extend your knowledge in any of the above areas. There are many open problems to solve and the ideal candidate will contribute both quality code and novel solutions.
Responsibilities
- Design and implement high-performance simulation tools for deformable body dynamics as part of our open-source robotics software stack.
- Collaborate with dynamics and simulation researchers to translate physical modeling needs into robust, scalable, and maintainable simulation code.
- Extend our open-source robotics toolkit, Drake, with new functionality for multiphysics simulation.
- Analyze and optimize performance bottlenecks in simulation pipelines to support real-time operation and large-scale batch processing.
- Develop automated test suites and validation pipelines to ensure correctness and physical fidelity of simulation results.
- Stay informed with the latest advances in numerical methods, parallel computing, and GPU architectures, and incorporate them into our tools.
- Contribute to technical publications and open-source collaborations as appropriate.
Qualifications
- Strong programming skills in modern C++ and experience with GPU programming (CUDA, OpenCL, or similar).
- Solid foundation in numerical methods for physics-based deformable body simulation, including Finite Element Method (FEM), Material Point Method (MPM), or other approaches.
- Background in continuum mechanics, including stress-strain relationships, constitutive modeling, and large-deformation simulation.
- Experience implementing scientific or simulation software in a collaborative, production-quality codebase.
- Proficiency in linear algebra, differential equations, and numerical analysis.
- Strong communication skills and a collaborative approach.
Bonus Qualifications
- Experience optimizing low-level code on modern GPU architectures (e.g., memory coalescing, shared memory usage, occupancy tuning).
- Familiarity with the Drake, Mujoco, or similar physics engines.
- Experience contributing to open-source scientific software and publishing research in simulation or graphics venues (e.g. SIGGRAPH, SIGGRAPH Asia, SCA, Eurographics).
The pay range for this position at commencement of employment is expected to be between $180,000 and $270,000/year for California-based roles; however, base pay offered may vary depending on multiple individualized factors, including market location, job-related knowledge, skills, and experience. Note that TRI offers a generous benefits package (including 401(k) eligibility and various paid time off benefits, such as vacation, sick time, and parental leave) and an annual cash bonus structure. Details of participation in these benefit plans will be provided if an employee receives an offer of employment.
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