Research Engineer, Robotics & Machine Learning for Human-Robot Interaction and Intelligent Vehicles

At Toyota Research Institute (TRI), we’re on a mission to improve the quality of human life. We’re developing new tools and capabilities to amplify the human experience. To lead this transformative shift in mobility, we’ve built a world-class team in Energy & Materials, Human-Centered AI, Human Interactive Driving, Large Behavioral Models, and Robotics.

The Human Aware Interactions and Learning team uses approaches from machine learning, robotics, and computer vision, along with insights from human factors literature, to devise new techniques that improve on the state of the art towards better machine understanding, prediction, and interactions with people in the driving domain, both in and around the vehicle. We work with computational and cognitive researchers to test our approaches from a variety of data sources and human-in-the-loop experiments to devise ML approaches that work with the driver.

We are seeking a highly motivated Research Engineer in Robotics and Machine Learning to support the development of experimental prototypes and simulation environments for human-robot interaction and intelligent vehicle research. The successful candidate will play a key role in designing, developing, and maintaining robotic systems and simulator rigs for data collection and experimental studies.

This is an opportunity to work on innovative research in human-robot interaction and intelligent vehicle systems in a collaborative and interdisciplinary team of experts in robotics, AI, and human factors. You will have access to state-of-the-art robotic platforms and simulation tools with the potential to contribute to academic publications and impactful real-world applications.

• Develop and maintain robotic platforms and simulation environments for human-robot interaction and intelligent vehicle research.
• Implement and integrate robotic systems using ROS (Robot Operating System) and other relevant frameworks.
• Work with hardware components (sensors, actuators, cameras, etc.) to build experimental rigs and testbeds.
• Develop software tools and algorithms for real-time data collection, system control, data analysis, and performance evaluation.
• Collaborate with researchers, engineers, and domain experts to design and implement human-in-the-loop experiments, and analyze the resulting data.
• Contribute to the development of novel machine learning approaches for driver assistance and human-robot interaction.
• Maintain and document software and hardware developments to ensure reproducibility and scalability.

• Master’s degree or equivalent experience, in Robotics, Computer Science, Electrical/Mechanical such, or a related field.
• Experience with ROS (Robot Operating System) for robotic system integration, as well as experience with analyzing data coming from robotic and HRI experiments.
• Hands-on experience with robotic hardware, including sensors, actuators, and embedded systems.
• Proficiency in Python and C++ for robotic system development.
• Experience with simulator frameworks (e.g., CARLA, Gazebo, AirSim, or similar).
• Strong problem-solving skills and ability to work collaboratively in a research-focused environment.

• Familiarity with machine learning techniques for perception, control, or human-robot interaction.
• Experience with real-time data acquisition and processing from cameras, LiDAR, IMUs, and other sensors.
• Background in human-subject experiments involving robots or intelligent vehicles.
• Experience in designing and fabricating custom hardware components for robotic testbeds.
• Knowledge of software development standard methodologies (version control, CI/CD, documentation).

Please submit your resume, brief cover letter and attach a Google Scholar link to your application.

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