Postdoctoral Fellowship - Robotics & AI - Ludo Robotics
2 weeks ago⚠️ Before applying, please carefully review all the job requirements
- Location:
- United States (USA) 🇺🇸 | South Korea 🇰🇷
- Work Arrangement:
- On-site (Includes potential business travel to the Seoul office)
- Experience:
- PhD (Completed or expected prior to start date)
- Job Type:
- Research Fellowship (1-Year Term)
- Company:
- Ludo Robotics
- Salary:
- $100,000 – $125,000 per year (California expected salary range)
- Posted:
- 2026-09-15
- Start Date:
- September 2026 (Flexible / Open to discussion)
Job Overview
- Ludo Robotics, an early-stage robotics intelligence startup backed by global gaming enterprise KRAFTON, is accepting applications for its 1-year Postdoctoral Research Fellowship. Based in Palo Alto, California, with operating facilities in Seoul, South Korea, Ludo Robotics develops adaptive, general-purpose robotic systems powered by large-scale data and machine learning architectures. The fellowship offers early-career post-doctoral researchers the opportunity to conduct independent and collaborative research in robotics, artificial intelligence, and human-robot interaction (HRI). Fellows receive full access to advanced robotic hardware platforms, extensive compute infrastructure, real-world deployment facilities, and direct mentorship from the company's founding research team. Designed to translate theoretical breakthroughs into physical robotic deployments, this position suits driven researchers holding or completing a PhD in computer science, robotics, or cognitive systems who are eager to publish impactful work while directly shaping real-world technology.
Key Responsibilities
- ★ Formulate and lead an independent research program within the fields of robotics, artificial intelligence, and human-robot interaction.
- ★ Execute empirical evaluations, controlled user studies, and field experiments on physical robot hardware.
- ★ Conceptualize theoretical models and translate them into functional, real-world prototype robot behaviors.
- ★ Review and synthesize literature across HRI, human-computer interaction, cognitive science, social robotics, and robot learning.
- ★ Integrate developed machine learning models, perception algorithms, and control tools directly into physical robot software pipelines.
- ★ Partner with cross-functional software engineers, product managers, and hardware designers to transition research into deployable systems.
- ★ Establish objective evaluation metrics, benchmark suites, and performance standards for robotic behavioral control.
- ★ Disseminate research findings through peer-reviewed conference publications, preprints, technical presentations, and open-source software.
- ★ Participate actively in internal design reviews, technical seminars, and knowledge-sharing sessions across the research organization.
Required Skills and Qualifications
- ★ Earned or expected PhD prior to start date in Human-Robot Interaction, Human-Computer Interaction, Robotics, Computer Science, Cognitive Science, or a closely related discipline.
- ★ Demonstrated track record of impactful research contributions through peer-reviewed publications, preprints, or technical outputs.
- ★ Practical experience conducting empirical research, rigorous system evaluations, ablation studies, or structured user experiments.
- ★ Capability to independently drive an ambitious research agenda with minimal supervision while maintaining active team communication.
Preferred Skills and Experience
- ★ Hands-on rapid prototyping experience with physical mobile platforms, humanoid robots, custom hardware, or virtual simulation environments.
- ★ Background in designing, managing, and analyzing controlled user studies or participatory co-design sessions.
- ★ Experience working across interdisciplinary domains to align human user insights with technical engineering parameters.
- ★ Technical proficiency with robotics software ecosystems such as ROS, Python, or equivalent framework tooling.
- ★ Practical exposure to large language models (LLMs) applied to task planning, natural language comprehension, or conversational AI for robots.
- ★ Innate interest in understanding human social dynamics and creating safe, intuitive, and natural human-robot interaction loops.
Research Focus Areas
- ★ Robot learning through demonstration, imitation learning, and reinforcement learning paradigms.
- ★ Computer vision, scene understanding, semantic mapping, and perception pipelines.
- ★ Dexterous manipulation, tool handling, and precision object grasping.
- ★ Autonomous navigation, mobile locomotion, and multi-agent robot coordination.
- ★ Foundation models and scalable data infrastructure for training physical robotic systems.
- ★ System robustness, sim-to-real domain adaptation, and functional safety frameworks.
- ★ Long-term user studies, public trust building, and transparent interaction design in public settings.
- ★ Socially aware motion planning, adaptive control, and human-conscious behavior modeling.
What the Company Offers
- ★ Expected annual salary range between $100,000 and $125,000 in California, commensurate with postdoctoral experience.
- ★ Full access to state-of-the-art robot hardware platforms, compute clusters, and physical testing environments.
- ★ Direct mentorship from Ludo Robotics' founding research team and access to KRAFTON's AI Center talent network.
- ★ Collaborative, fast-moving research culture focused on high-ownership engineering.
- ★ Potential pathway for the fellowship to convert into a permanent, full-time research position based on mutual fit.
Application Requirements & Process
- ★ Application submissions must include an updated CV, a 1–2 page research statement, and up to three representative publications or preprints.
- ★ Applications are reviewed on a rolling basis, with an anticipated start date of September 2026 (flexible start dates negotiable during interviews).
- ★ Reasonable accommodations for applicants with disabilities are supported through the Ludo Robotics Operations Team.
Interested Candidates Fill the Form: Apply Here
