Simulation Engineer - Design and Behavior - Dexterity

at Apptronik · Robotics · HQ · Software Engineering

Apptronik is seeking a Simulation Engineer to own the "Design-to-Simulation" loop for their next-generation dexterous hands. This role involves ingesting hand designs into simulation, constructing high-fidelity interaction scenes, implementing teleoperation pipelines, and using simulation to train and test advanced manipulation behaviors, collaborating with controls teams to prototype skills. The engineer will also create automated analysis tools for workspace and kinematic analysis, and partner with the hardware team to measure and reduce the sim-to-real gap.

What you'd actually do

  1. Develop tooling to rapidly convert CAD into Universal Scene Description (USD) assets with accurate collision meshes, joint limits, and kinematic parameters optimized for Isaac Sim.
  2. Design and implement the evaluation environments in Isaac Lab, including the multiple dexterity benchmarks and scenarios. You will own the modeling of the physical properties for high-fidelity photorealistic dynamic simulation.
  3. Implement and maintain the interface between human input devices (VR gloves, controllers) and the simulated hand. You will ensure the teleoperation stack performs identically on simulated hands as it does on real hardware.
  4. Create automated analysis tools via Python scripting in Isaac Sim to visualize reachable workspace and manipulability ellipsoids for new hand designs immediately upon import.
  5. Partner with the hardware team to iteratively measure and reduce the sim-to-real gap. You will run side-by-side comparisons of grasping stability to tune simulation parameters until they match reality.

Skills

Required

  • Deep experience with modern robotics simulators, like Isaac Sim or MuJoCo.
  • Strong understanding of the Universal Scene Description (USD) file format, including composition arcs, layers, and stages.
  • Strong Python skills for scripting, pipeline automation, and data analysis.
  • Solid understanding of kinematics, rigid body dynamics, collision geometry generation, and spatial math.

Nice to have

  • Proficiency in C++ is a plus.

What the JD emphasized

  • train and test advanced manipulation behaviors

Other signals

  • robotics simulation
  • dexterous hands
  • train and test advanced manipulation behaviors
  • sim-to-real validation
Read full job description

Apptronik is a human-centered robotics company developing AI-powered robots to support humanity in every facet of life. Our flagship humanoid robot, Apollo, is built to collaborate thoughtfully with people, starting with critical industries such as manufacturing and logistics, with future applications in healthcare, the home, and beyond.

We operate at the cutting edge of embodied AI, applying our expertise across the full robotics stack to solve some of society's most important problems. You will join a team dedicated to bringing Apollo to market at scale, tackling the complex challenges like safety, commercialization, and mass production to change the world for the better.

JOB SUMMARY

We are seeking an early-career Simulation Engineer to join our growing Simulation team as a generalist contributor. This is an opportunity to learn humanoid simulation across its full breadth — from physics and contact modeling through scene authoring, asset pipelines, and developer tooling — while contributing to multiple ongoing initiatives at once.

You will work across several of the team's focus areas, with near-term emphasis on supporting our dexterous-hand simulation work. As we hire a senior owner for the Dexterity domain, you will help build the foundational infrastructure they will grow into, and over time develop depth in the area where your interests and the team's needs align best.

ESSENTIAL DUTIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES:

  • Dexterity Foundations: Build and maintain hand collision geometry (primitive decomposition, mesh cleanup). Author evaluation scenes and dexterity benchmarks in Isaac Lab / Isaac Sim from specifications. Run sim-to-real comparison experiments and produce comparison reports.
  • Design-Time Simulation: Contribute to the CAD-to-simulation pipeline — kinematic graph extraction, collision geometry, mass and inertia property handling. Run design-space exploration experiments per protocols defined by senior team members.
  • Robot Description & Asset Pipeline: Help maintain canonical robot models — joint limits, inertias, collision properties. Build and maintain regression tests and validation tooling for the robot assets the rest of the org depends on.
  • Production Platform Contributions: Contribute to the simulation platform's tooling, examples, CI infrastructure, and developer documentation. Triage user-reported issues and help unblock other teams using the platform.
  • Team Contributions: Own onboarding docs and example scenes that help new engineers get productive on the platform — your perspective as the newest team member is a real asset here.

SKILLS AND REQUIREMENTS:

Must-Have

  • 0–2 years of professional software engineering experience (strong internship or research project experience qualifies)
  • Strong Python skills
  • Solid fundamentals: rigid body dynamics, linear algebra, spatial math, programming
  • Coursework or project experience with robotics simulation, computational geometry, or computer graphics
  • Demonstrated curiosity and willingness to work across multiple domains rather than specializing immediately

Nice-to-Have

  • Hands-on experience with Isaac Sim, MuJoCo, Gazebo, or equivalent simulator (coursework or projects count)
  • Familiarity with USD, URDF, MJCF, or other robot/scene description formats
  • Exposure to mechanical engineering, robot hardware, or sim-to-real workflows
  • Some C++ exposure
  • Internship or research experience in robotics, gaming, or graphics

EDUCATION and/or EXPERIENCE:

  • BS in Computer Science, Robotics, Mechanical Engineering, or related field. MS welcome but not

**PHYSICAL REQUIREMENTS **

  • Prolonged periods of sitting at a desk and working on a computer
  • Must be able to lift 15 pounds at times
  • Vision to read printed materials and a computer screen
  • Hearing and speech to communicate

*This is a direct hire. Please, no outside Agency solicitations.

Apptronik provides equal employment opportunities to all employees and applicants for employment and prohibits discrimination and harassment of any type without regard to race, color, religion, age, sex, national origin, disability status, genetics, protected veteran status, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, or any other characteristic protected by federal, state or local laws.