Senior Robotics Engineer / Postdoctoral Researcher with Lab Management Responsibilities 50 - 100 %

You manage and maintain Physical AI research and teaching equipment and multiple laboratory spaces, work with industrial partners on a regular basis, and participate in research projects together with our teams at our Centre for Artificial Intelligence (CAI).

School: School of Engineering

Starting date: May 2026 or by agreement (1 year contract).

• 30% of employment: Being the go-to person at the CAI for all aspects of our robotics laboratories and all related equipment, including industrial robot arms, sensors, various humanoid robots, a fleet of quadrupeds and other research and teaching equipment. You also manage and maintain local servers, networks, onboard computers and cloud-based infrastructure (e.g. simulation environments, training pipelines).
• Employment exceeding 30%: Participation in applied research and development projects as senior robotics engineer / postdoctoral researcher in the EMA research group (reinforcement learning, large multi-modal models, agentic embodied AI systems, publications, open-source code contributions etc.).
• Working in a dynamic environment that currently includes planning, procurement, building, and operations (including lab safety).
• Collaborating with the heads of both robotics groups at the CAI (Industrial AI + Embodied Mobile Agents) and interfacing with their researchers and students to continually adapt the robotics laboratories to user needs, provide training and best practices etc.
• We are looking for a pragmatic person with a strong drive to build things that work and are appealing to use (a “maker"); we expect a strong background with experience with real robots (including prototyping, modifying robots with off-the-shelf equipment), machine learning / deep learning, and programming, with a master's or PhD degree in computer science or a comparable background. Previous experience setting up, maintaining or managing multiple robotic platforms and related infrastructure/labs are beneficial.
• You have proven competencies in robotics including ROS / ROS 2, PCL, OpenCV, the NVIDIA Jetson ecosystem, and frameworks such as Nav2 or MoveIt. Ideally, you have some experience with machine learning applied to robotics and basic distributed systems infrastructure (e.g. scikit-learn, PyTorch, CUDA, Docker + Kubernetes) and server administration (comfortable with Linux, basic networking knowledge, hardware setups typical in robotic systems).
• Your curiosity makes you maintain an overview of the current state of knowledge in robotics and applied AI and related technology; for the research part of the job, you have a strong AI-related research track record (e.g. proven by publications), ideally related to robotics or computer vision.
• Fluency in English and German as well as the capacity to interact on equal footing with management, researchers and students is important; you work independently, manage the labs in autonomy and reliably with respect also to safety and procedures, enjoy cooperation in interdisciplinary teams, and have an accurate, results-oriented working style.
• In return, we offer a position on the level of a research associate, initially limited to 2 years, in which you ideally just live out your hobby (playing with latest technology), freedom and development opportunities (for example in the direction of research, project management or an expert role for Physical AI and robotics projects), as well as a high degree of flexibility with respect to working times and places (up to 50% homeoffice in principle, while working with hardware will require a higher on-site percentage depending on projects and laboratory needs).

The School of Engineering (SoE), as one of the leading educational and research institutions in Switzerland, focuses on topics relevant to the future. 14 institutes and centres guarantee high-quality education, research and development with a focus on the areas of energy, mobility, information and health.

The Centre for Artificial Intelligence (CAI) maintains a growing number of research groups in the fields of Natural Language Processing and Computer Vision, Perception and Cognition, Autonomous Learning Systems, Trustworthy AI and AI Engineering. The CAI conducts method-focused applied research and development at the highest level in the field of machine learning and is committed to a human-centered approach to artificial intelligence, thereby actively shaping the ethical dimension.

We are looking for a witty, sharp, curious, and technically skilled personality. We value potential over formally certified skills, encouraging also unconventional CVs, e.g., transdisciplinary backgrounds or own entrepreneurial experience. Please honor us with a tailored cover letter and highlight facts that underline your ability to achieve high. We are looking forward to hearing from you!

Wir bieten hochschulgerechte Arbeits- und Anstellungsbedingungen an und fördern aktiv die Personalentwicklung unserer Mitarbeitenden und Führungspersonen. Eine detaillierte Beschreibung der Vorteile ist auf der Webseite «Arbeiten an der ZHAW» zu finden. Hier die wichtigsten Eckpunkte:

Dr. Jorge Peña Queralta

Head of Embodied Mobile Agents Research Group

Samy Shalaby

Recruiting Manager