Senior / Staff Robotics Research Scientist - Dexterous & Mobile Manipulation

Join the Future of Robotic Biomanufacturing!

Multiply Labs is a robotics company on a mission to solve a significant bottleneck in modern medicine: the manufacturing of life-saving advanced biologics, from gene and cell therapies to antibodies and more.

Today, these therapies are produced through manual, labor-intensive processes. Costs are extremely high—often $500K–$2M per patient—limiting access to only a small fraction of those who need them.

As product complexity increases and the cost of failure and scientific labor rises, the industry is shifting toward automation. Robotics and AI are making automated biologics manufacturing feasible, reliable, and economically scalable.

We believe the future of biomanufacturing is robotic—closed, automated, and scalable—ensuring critical therapeutics are accessible to every patient who needs them.

Why This Matters

We don’t just build robots; we build the infrastructure for the next generation of biologics manufacturing. Our technology allows biopharma companies to scale production without redesigning their science, drastically lowering regulatory hurdles and bringing costs down to a level where these treatments can actually reach patients.

The Stack & The Scale

The Mission: Build the world’s best robots to make life-saving therapies accessible to all.

The Technology: Advanced robotic orchestration, high-precision automation, cloud-integrated hardware-software systems, dextrous manipulation, and imitation learning.

The Location: Headquartered in San Francisco, CA.

The Backing: Supported by premier investors, including Casdin Capital, Lux Capital, and Y Combinator.

To learn more and to view a video of our robots in action, visit us at www.multiplylabs.com and follow us on LinkedIn.

About the Role

At Multiply Labs, we are applying AI to solve complex manipulation challenges in robotic cell therapy manufacturing. We're looking for a Research Scientist specializing in robotic manipulation to develop the next generation of our intelligent robotic systems.

You will be responsible for developing frontier research results, developing and deploying practical systems with a core focus on dexterous & mobile manipulation.You will work closely with a multi-disciplinary team and directly impacting our mission to manufacture life-saving therapies at scale.

Responsibilities include

• Research focused on advancing robotic manipulation systems by developing exciting new ideas and providing solutions to complex problems
• Collaborate on publications to be submitted at worldwide conferences
• Working with fellow researchers and engineers to develop prototypes
• Apply yours and others’ research to real world problems

Requirements

• MS or PhD in a robotics-relevant field
• 5+ years of experience in research and development
• A strong theoretical and practical understanding of modern approaches for robotic manipulation, which might include imitation learning, reinforcement learning, and vision-language-action (VLA) models
• High proficiency with Python and deep learning frameworks (e.g., PyTorch).
• Experience collaborating in large and complex code bases
• Experience with modern robotics simulation environments designed for ML (e.g., Isaac Sim, MuJoCo, PyBullet).
• A track record of deploying onto physical robot hardware, especially high-degree-of-freedom manipulators or humanoids.
• Proven track record of publications in top-tier conferences and journals in Machine Learning, Robotics, or related fields
• Robotics: ICRA, IROS, CoRL, RSS, TRO, IJRR, etc
• Computer vision: CVPR, ICCV, ECCV, etc
• Machine Learning: NeurIPS, ICLR, ICML, etc

Nice to Haves

• The following is an example list of expertise - because robotics is such a broad umbrella, we do not expect candidates to check every item here; if you have an expertise that is not listed here, please also let us know via the cover letter.
• Experience with planning algorithms (A, RRT, PRM, etc)
• Experience with controller design (linear/nonlinear/optimal/robust/adaptive control, LQR, DDP, MPC, etc)
• Experience with optimization techniques (linear/quadratic/semidefinite/nonlinear optimization, etc)
• Experience with dynamics modeling (linear, nonlinear, Euler-Lagrange, Newton-Euler, Featherstone, etc)
• Experience with partial sensing (POMDPs, Kalman filters, particle filters, etc)
• Experience with task planning (TAMP, STRIPS, MDPs, etc)
• Experience with robotics toolkits (ROS/ROS2, OpenRAVE, MoveIt!, etc)

Total Rewards & Life at Multiply Labs

• Competitive Compensation: Salary range of $160,000 - $210,000 a year plus meaningful early-stage equity. We want our team to have a real stake in the future we’re building.
• Premium Health: Premium Medical, Dental, and Vision plans with subsidies for child dependents.
• Wealth Building: 401(k) with a 4% company match to help you plan for the long term.
• Pre-Tax Commuter Benefit: Pay for eligible transit and parking with pre-tax dollars to save on commuting costs.
• Parental Support: Robust Paid Parental Leave to support your family’s newest additions.
• True Flexibility: We offer Flexible PTO and 12 Paid Holidays, trusting you to manage your time and recharge when you need it.
• No Set Hours: Set your own schedule in alignment with your manager and team. We hold a high bar, measuring success by impact and outcomes – not hours logged.
• Office Perks: A vibrant SF office culture featuring catered team lunches, stocked kitchen, and frequent team events.
• H-1B and Green Card sponsorship available for exceptional talent.
• Referral bonuses for helping us build a world-class team.
• Great people, meaningful work, and a team that genuinely believes in what we're building.

Come build the world’s best robots—and help make life-saving therapies accessible to all.

We take pride in cultivating an environment that fosters collaboration, open communication, and authenticity. We are an equal opportunity employer; we do not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, color, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, age, marital status, veteran status, or disability status. We are diverse in background and singular in mission.

Multiply Labs is an early-stage startup where equity is a major part of the compensation package.

Our job titles may span multiple career levels. Actual base pay is determined by several factors including: education, training, transferable skills, work experience, business needs, and location.