Staff/Sr. Staff, Physical AI Researcher (LG Emerging Tech Lab)

Description

The company has been in business for more than six decades, operates in over 290 locations, and runs four business areas: Home Appliance Solutions, Media Entertainment Solutions, Vehicle Solutions, and Eco Solutions.

The Emerging Technology Lab is part of the CTO organization and works as a Center of Excellence. From offices in Silicon Valley and New Jersey, it defines key technology areas, sets strategic direction, builds internal and external partnerships, and aims for measurable business value.

This is a Physical AI research leadership role that helps set the direction for embodied intelligence and shapes research and product roadmaps toward the company's zero-labor home vision.

The work centers on building generalist robot intelligence and deploying it at scale on the company's next-generation robot platforms. You will move research from early ideas to real products used worldwide.

You will lead a growing group of Physical AI researchers and work with robotics and AI teams across the company.

Responsibilities

• Set the technical direction for the company's Physical AI team and lead research in multimodal robot foundation models and physical intelligence.
• Lead and manage work with the company's headquarters and third-party research labs to bring advanced robotics technology into the company's ecosystem.
• Build a cross-functional Physical AI ecosystem by working with the company's AI, robotics, software, and product teams and with external research partners.
• Define project scope, goals, and deliverables that connect frontier research to business strategy.
• Lead fundamental and applied research on physical intelligence, with a clear route to working robotic systems.
• Develop new methods for physical intelligence, including multimodal foundation models that combine images, video, text, and touch, as well as world-action models, generalist dexterity, and agentic robot orchestration.
• Work with startups and industry partners to co-design hardware and software systems and test them in real-world settings.
• Help research reach consumer products at scale, with support for owning your research, publishing, and collaborating with leading universities and AI labs.

Requirements

• A PhD in computer science, robotics, machine learning, or a closely related technical field, with a strong publication record and at least 3 years of industry experience.
• Deep research and engineering experience in at least one of: robot foundation models (such as VLAs, LBMs, and diffusion or flow matching policies for manipulation and locomotion), world model training for robot action prediction, spatial intelligence (self-supervised visual foundation models, 3D scene reconstruction, and embodied scene understanding), multimodal representation learning across vision, language, and touch, or learning from human demonstrations and self-play.
• At least 1 year of experience leading technically ambitious research in fast-moving environments.
• Hands-on experience connecting AI models to real robots, such as manipulators or mobile robots, using sensors like RGB and depth cameras, LiDAR, force-torque sensors, and tactile sensors.
• Experience with physics simulation platforms such as PyBullet, MuJoCo, or Isaac Sim for generating large datasets, running experiments, and evaluating results.
• Strong written and verbal communication, with the ability to explain complex technical ideas to research, engineering, and leadership teams.

Conditions

This is a hybrid role based at the Emerging Technology Lab in Santa Clara, CA.

The recruiting range is $200,000 to $350,000 USD. The final salary depends on the experience and level of the candidate hired.

Benefits

• Medical, dental, vision, and prescription coverage with no-cost premiums for you and your eligible dependents.
• 401(k) retirement plan with automatic enrollment, company matching that vests immediately, and several investment options.
• Generous paid time off, including company holidays and a combined bank of paid sick and vacation time.
• Performance-based short-term incentives, which vary by role.
• Confidential mental health resources for you and your family.
• Incentives for reaching personal fitness goals.
• Family benefits including paid parental leave and support for families raising children with learning, social, behavioral, or developmental disabilities.
• Group rate life and disability insurance.
• Eligibility for benefit programs offered through partner agencies.