AI Research Engineer

Job Title: AI Research Engineer - Vision-Language Action Models

Griffin Labs is looking for a Founding AI Research Engineer to lead the adaptation and deployment of Vision-Language-Action (VLA) models. We are focused on solving high-dexterity manipulation through cross-embodiment learning—training models that generalize across diverse robotic platforms and hardware configurations.

The Role

You will own the full development lifecycle of autonomous capabilities. This is an end-to- end mission: from reviewing raw trajectory data and designing model architectures to deployment and fleet-level monitoring. You aren’t just training models; you are building the systems that allow them to function in the real world.

Key Responsibilities:

• End-to-End Ownership: Lead the "data-to-deployment" loop—curating datasets, fine-tuning VLA models, and building the monitoring systems that ensure fleet-level reliability.

• Cross-Embodiment Learning: Develop and optimize models capable of handling diverse robot morphologies and kinematic constraints.

• Model Adaptation: Architect and fine-tune VLA stacks that bridge high-level reasoning with low-level whole-body control.
• Academic Collaboration: Work alongside expert research advisors from institutions like Stanford, NTU, and SUTD to push the boundaries of what's possible in robotics.

• Validation: Design robust evaluation metrics in Isaac Sim/MuJoCo and bridge the Sim2Real gap for a production fleet.

Requirements

• Technical Depth: A strong fundamental understanding of Transformers, Diffusion architectures, and LLMs/VLMs, particularly as they apply to sequential decision-making or action prediction.

• ML Expertise: Deep proficiency in PyTorch and experience fine-tuning large-scale multimodal models.

• Cross-Embodiment: A strong interest or background in generalizing AI across different robot types.

• Simulation: Fluency in environments like Isaac Sim or MuJoCo and the nuances of the "Reality Gap."

• Software Foundations: High proficiency in Python.

• Founding Mindset: High agency and the ability to build necessary tooling, scripts, and evaluation frameworks from scratch.

Why Griffin Labs?

We are a lean, technical team moving at the pace of frontier AI. As a founding hire, you will have a direct hand in shaping our technical North Star and defining how the next generation of robots learns from the world