Centific
Lead Research Scientist Vision AI, Simulation & Physical AI (Seattle)
Centific, Seattle, Washington, United States, 98127
About the Team
Centifics
Robotics and Physical AI Lab
is pioneering the fusion of
simulation-first research ,
embodied intelligence , and
multimodal perception . Our mission: accelerate the transition from
vision and language understanding
to
real-world action , enabling next-generation robots, agents, and safety systems across industries. Were assembling a cross-functional team of engineers, researchers, and interns exploring
vision-language models (VLMs) ,
world models , and
sim2real transfer . As our
Lead Research Scientist , you will steer this effortbridging academic rigor with hands-on experimentation, guiding early-stage researchers, and converting scientific breakthroughs into deployable AI systems.
Mission Drive the scientific and technical direction of Centifics
Physical AI and Robotics R&D . Lead by examplementoring a team of interns and engineers while collaborating across simulation, perception, and multimodal AI.
What Youll Do Leadership & Mentorship Lead a team of 35 Ph.D. interns and engineers across perception, multimodal reasoning, and simulation projects. Architect and maintain a collaborative research roadmap with measurable milestones and publishable outcomes. Foster a culture of open research, reproducibility, and iterative learning. Research & Development Define and execute high-impact research in
embodied AI ,
world models , and
vision-language reasoning . Integrate
digital twins, Isaac Sim, MuJoCo , or other simulators for real-world policy validation and sim2real adaptation. Advance
multimodal model design from grounding and affordance recognition to causal and temporal reasoning. Explore
data-efficient training ,
spatially aware neural architectures , and
robustness evaluation frameworks . System Integration & Deployment Collaborate with platform engineers to deploy research artifacts into scalable services using
Ray, FastAPI, Docker, and Kubernetes . Benchmark large-scale inference pipelines, model distillation strategies, and safety validation workflows. Publish open-source code and internal benchmarks that raise the scientific bar. Collaboration Partner with the Principal Architect, simulation teams, and external research collaborators. Lead proof-of-concept integrations with simulation or robotics hardware vendors. Represent Centific in academic conferences and consortiums on AI, simulation, and robotics.
Minimum Qualifications Ph.D. in
Computer Science, Robotics, or related field , with a strong publication record in
CVPR/ICCV/ECCV, NeurIPS/ICLR/CoRL/RSS , or equivalent. 5+ years of postdoctoral or industry research experience in
computer vision, simulation, multimodal reasoning, or spatial AI . Deep expertise in
PyTorch or JAX ,
GPU-accelerated workloads , and
distributed training . Proven record of
mentoring junior researchers
or leading interdisciplinary R&D projects. Experience with
Isaac Sim, Open3D, PyTorch3D, or MuJoCo
for digital-twin and behavior simulation. Strong understanding of
statistical spatial modeling ,
RL/MPC policy learning , and
world-model architectures .
Preferred Qualifications Publications or patents in
spatially-aware neural networks ,
multimodal world modeling , or
simulation-based training . Experience implementing
Ray-based distributed training
or
Triton/TensorRT-based inference optimizations . Familiarity with
trustworthy AI ,
explainability in autonomous systems , or
safety validation for robotics . Contributions to open-source frameworks (e.g.,
OpenMMLab, Isaac Sim assets, Habitat, Omniverse pipelines ). History of
academic collaboration
or joint research programs with universities or labs.
What Success Looks Like Delivery of
reproducible, publishable, and deployable
research outcomes that strengthen Centifics Physical AI IP portfolio. Mentorship that grows the capabilities and confidence of your team. Leadership that balances
curiosity-driven research
with
product-driven execution . Demonstrable impact on simulation realism, policy robustness, and model generalization.
Our Stack Modeling:
PyTorch, JAX, Hugging Face, xFormers Simulation:
Isaac Sim, MuJoCo, Open3D, COLMAP, 3DGS/NeRF Systems:
Python, Ray, FastAPI, Kubernetes, Docker, Triton, Weights & Biases Multimodal AI:
CLIP, SAM, LLaVA, Cosmos-Reason, Vision-Language Transformers Data & Evaluation:
Omniverse USD pipelines, world-model benchmarks, synthetic-to-real datasets
Why Join Centific Lead the frontier:
Shape a new discipline at the intersection of AI, simulation, and robotics. Mentor the next generation:
Guide emerging researchers working on cutting-edge multimodal and embodied AI problems. Ship your science:
See your research power real systems across safety, healthcare, and smart environments. Collaborate with industry leaders:
Work with NVIDIA, Microsoft, and the global Physical AI community.
Centific is an equal-opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, national origin, ancestry, citizenship status, age, mental or physical disability, medical condition, sex (including pregnancy), gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, marital status, familial status, veteran status, or any other characteristic protected by applicable law. We consider qualified applicants regardless of criminal histories, consistent with legal requirements.
Robotics and Physical AI Lab
is pioneering the fusion of
simulation-first research ,
embodied intelligence , and
multimodal perception . Our mission: accelerate the transition from
vision and language understanding
to
real-world action , enabling next-generation robots, agents, and safety systems across industries. Were assembling a cross-functional team of engineers, researchers, and interns exploring
vision-language models (VLMs) ,
world models , and
sim2real transfer . As our
Lead Research Scientist , you will steer this effortbridging academic rigor with hands-on experimentation, guiding early-stage researchers, and converting scientific breakthroughs into deployable AI systems.
Mission Drive the scientific and technical direction of Centifics
Physical AI and Robotics R&D . Lead by examplementoring a team of interns and engineers while collaborating across simulation, perception, and multimodal AI.
What Youll Do Leadership & Mentorship Lead a team of 35 Ph.D. interns and engineers across perception, multimodal reasoning, and simulation projects. Architect and maintain a collaborative research roadmap with measurable milestones and publishable outcomes. Foster a culture of open research, reproducibility, and iterative learning. Research & Development Define and execute high-impact research in
embodied AI ,
world models , and
vision-language reasoning . Integrate
digital twins, Isaac Sim, MuJoCo , or other simulators for real-world policy validation and sim2real adaptation. Advance
multimodal model design from grounding and affordance recognition to causal and temporal reasoning. Explore
data-efficient training ,
spatially aware neural architectures , and
robustness evaluation frameworks . System Integration & Deployment Collaborate with platform engineers to deploy research artifacts into scalable services using
Ray, FastAPI, Docker, and Kubernetes . Benchmark large-scale inference pipelines, model distillation strategies, and safety validation workflows. Publish open-source code and internal benchmarks that raise the scientific bar. Collaboration Partner with the Principal Architect, simulation teams, and external research collaborators. Lead proof-of-concept integrations with simulation or robotics hardware vendors. Represent Centific in academic conferences and consortiums on AI, simulation, and robotics.
Minimum Qualifications Ph.D. in
Computer Science, Robotics, or related field , with a strong publication record in
CVPR/ICCV/ECCV, NeurIPS/ICLR/CoRL/RSS , or equivalent. 5+ years of postdoctoral or industry research experience in
computer vision, simulation, multimodal reasoning, or spatial AI . Deep expertise in
PyTorch or JAX ,
GPU-accelerated workloads , and
distributed training . Proven record of
mentoring junior researchers
or leading interdisciplinary R&D projects. Experience with
Isaac Sim, Open3D, PyTorch3D, or MuJoCo
for digital-twin and behavior simulation. Strong understanding of
statistical spatial modeling ,
RL/MPC policy learning , and
world-model architectures .
Preferred Qualifications Publications or patents in
spatially-aware neural networks ,
multimodal world modeling , or
simulation-based training . Experience implementing
Ray-based distributed training
or
Triton/TensorRT-based inference optimizations . Familiarity with
trustworthy AI ,
explainability in autonomous systems , or
safety validation for robotics . Contributions to open-source frameworks (e.g.,
OpenMMLab, Isaac Sim assets, Habitat, Omniverse pipelines ). History of
academic collaboration
or joint research programs with universities or labs.
What Success Looks Like Delivery of
reproducible, publishable, and deployable
research outcomes that strengthen Centifics Physical AI IP portfolio. Mentorship that grows the capabilities and confidence of your team. Leadership that balances
curiosity-driven research
with
product-driven execution . Demonstrable impact on simulation realism, policy robustness, and model generalization.
Our Stack Modeling:
PyTorch, JAX, Hugging Face, xFormers Simulation:
Isaac Sim, MuJoCo, Open3D, COLMAP, 3DGS/NeRF Systems:
Python, Ray, FastAPI, Kubernetes, Docker, Triton, Weights & Biases Multimodal AI:
CLIP, SAM, LLaVA, Cosmos-Reason, Vision-Language Transformers Data & Evaluation:
Omniverse USD pipelines, world-model benchmarks, synthetic-to-real datasets
Why Join Centific Lead the frontier:
Shape a new discipline at the intersection of AI, simulation, and robotics. Mentor the next generation:
Guide emerging researchers working on cutting-edge multimodal and embodied AI problems. Ship your science:
See your research power real systems across safety, healthcare, and smart environments. Collaborate with industry leaders:
Work with NVIDIA, Microsoft, and the global Physical AI community.
Centific is an equal-opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, national origin, ancestry, citizenship status, age, mental or physical disability, medical condition, sex (including pregnancy), gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, marital status, familial status, veteran status, or any other characteristic protected by applicable law. We consider qualified applicants regardless of criminal histories, consistent with legal requirements.