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San Francisco, CA
Conduit has built the system of record for the modern factory floor. We move manufacturers from one-off automation projects to holistic production systems where robots, machines, operators, sensors, and factory software synchronize. We are live with top manufacturers, are well capitalized, and are growing quickly. We are hiring the roboticists building the AI-native version of the factory.
The Role
Over the last five years, the way robots interface with the world has shifted from hand-engineered mathematical control to learned policies. We believe the next generation of factory automation will be built by people whose default mental model is modern ML, and who carry enough classical robotics to make that ML survive contact with the real world.
As an AI-Native Roboticist at Conduit, you will take off-the-shelf production hardware and turn it into a reliable Conduit system by adding our coordination logic, our perception, and the model-based capabilities that let one cell generalize across many factories. Your work runs on a real line within weeks of being prototyped, and the customer is in the room when it does.
What you'll do
Take production robots (Universal Robots, FANUC, KUKA, ABB, Yaskawa) and generalize them. Add coordination, perception, and policy logic so a single cell type can be deployed across many customers without three months of bespoke engineering each time.
Prototype and adapt modern ML for manipulation, inspection, machine tending, and material handling: VLA policies, diffusion policies, imitation learning, vision-language models, 3D perception, world-model-flavored video understanding.
Run the unglamorous half of the ML pipeline. Collect demonstrations on real factory hardware, label and curate data, build evaluation harnesses, ship the next checkpoint.
Use classical robotics fundamentals (calibration, frames, motion planning, force control, safety-rated cells) to make learned policies actually survive a factory floor.
Spend meaningful time onsite. Lighting, dust, occlusion, cycle time, operator workflows, and “the customer just moved the bin three inches” are part of the job.
Turn one-off breakthroughs into reusable Conduit capabilities so the next deployment is faster than the last.
Who You Are
4+ years of hands-on robotics work where modern ML was central, not a side experiment. Industry or a high-output research group both count. PhDs welcome and not required.
You have shipped at least one robotics system that someone other than you was depending on.
You are AI-native in robotics. Modern ML is your default toolkit, and you have opinions about what is real versus what is a demo.
You know enough classical robotics to ground your ML: coordinate frames, calibration, motion planning, force and impedance control, safety, and why factory cycle time is unforgiving.
You write production-quality Python and ideally C++. You are fluent in Linux, ROS or ROS 2, Docker, and GPU workflows.
You feel ill when a robot has been broken for three days.
You want to be a part of the reindustrialization of the United States.
Bonus Points
Experience with NVIDIA Isaac Sim, Isaac Lab, Cosmos, GR00T, or comparable simulation and foundation-model toolchains.
Hands-on with OpenVLA, RT-2/RT-X, Octo, V-JEPA, Gemini Robotics, or similar.
Experience with industrial sensing — Ouster lidar, structured-light, time-of-flight, industrial machine vision.
Background in mechanical or electrical engineering. Not required, but seeing the whole package helps.
The teams that win the next decade of robotics will not be the ones with the neatest demos. They will be the ones whose models run on a real shop floor on a Tuesday morning, with a customer who depends on them. Conduit is that company, and this role is the tip of the spear.
Top tier pay and equity: We want to make it easy to join Conduit.
Generational opportunity. Be early at a company defining the software layer for industrial automation.
American re-industrialization is happening. We’re building the platform to make it real — faster.
Zero bureaucracy. High impact. You’ll be on the front lines, solving real problems for real factories.
You will level up. You’ll work directly with the founder and exec team — and grow into a senior operator
Conduit is an equal opportunity employer. We welcome applications from all qualified candidates.
Apply here.
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Detroit, MI
87 MCLEA COURT
SAN FRANCISCO, CA
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