Principal Simulation Engineer, Industrial Physics and Robotics

NVIDIA NVIDIA · Semiconductors · Switzerland +5 · Remote

NVIDIA is seeking a Principal Simulation Engineer to lead the development of advanced physically based simulation systems for robotics and industrial digital twins. This role requires deep expertise in multibody dynamics, contact, friction, and flexible bodies, with a focus on integrating simulation with robotics workflows and applying modern AI-assisted and agentic development. The ideal candidate has a track record of building production-level simulation software and experience validating simulators against physical systems.

What you'd actually do

  1. Design and develop advanced physically based simulation systems for robotics and industrial digital twins.
  2. Collaborate with teams across PhysX, Newton, Omniverse, and Isaac robotics.
  3. Bring modern industrial and engineering simulation methodologies into NVIDIA’s scalable simulation stack.
  4. Design, evaluate and improve methods for multibody dynamics, contact and friction, flexible-body behavior, deformables, and related numerical solvers.
  5. Integrate simulation with robotics workflows involving ROS 2, CAD and URDF pipelines, OpenUSD assets, HIL/SIL environments, and controller-development loops.

Skills

Required

  • Master’s or PhD degree in a relevant discipline (e.g., mechanical engineering, robotics, computer science, applied mathematics, or physics), or equivalent depth of expertise through professional experience
  • Deep knowledge in several of the following areas: multibody dynamics, constrained systems, contact and friction, articulations, flexible bodies, cable or wire simulation, deformables, FEM, solver design, numerical integration, stiffness handling, or model reduction.
  • Experience validating simulators against physical systems, including some combination of test correlation, calibration, HIL/SIL workflows, or controller co-simulation.
  • Working fluency in robotics-system integration and mechanical-engineering toolchains, including ROS 2, Simulink, Simscape, and model pipelines based on CAD, URDF, MJCF, or OpenUSD.
  • Strong interest in applying modern AI-assisted and agentic development workflows to large-scale simulation systems.
  • Excellent problem-solving and communication skills.

Nice to have

  • Experience with GPU-accelerated computing (e.g., CUDA, Warp) for high-performance simulation and parallel workloads.
  • Experience with reinforcement learning and sim-to-real robotics workflows, including integration with control systems.
  • Publications in leading venues such as ICRA, IROS, RSS, SCA, Eurographics, NeurIPS, or related conferences.
  • Proven ability to design large-scale simulation systems that balance numerical robustness, scalability, and performance.
  • Familiarity with robotics simulation and control, co-simulation, model-based design, neural surrogate models, and platforms such as Omniverse, PhysX, Newton, Isaac Sim & Lab, alongside technical leadership or simulation architecture ownership.

What the JD emphasized

  • track record of building or leading simulation software used in production engineering, robotics, industrial machinery, automotive, aerospace, manufacturing, or adjacent domains
  • 15+ years of relevant industry experience, demonstrating sustained impact in simulation development, system design, or engineering software at scale
  • Significant experience developing physically based simulation systems used in production engineering environments

Other signals

  • building simulation technology used to make decisions about real machines
  • modern agentic AI based accelerated-computing environment
  • integrate simulation with robotics workflows