What's the most useful feedback you got in a robotics job interview, even if you didn't get the offer?

[nicole57]

Slight correction, though the overall point stands: A commonly cited skill gap in new-grad applicants is practical systems integration experience - many candidates are individually strong in ML or in mechanical design, but comparatively few have hands-on experience getting perception, planning, and control to work together reliably on real hardware under time pressure.

[mia_lars]

Pretty much this. One thing to add: RSS (Robotics: Science and Systems), ICRA, and the IEEE-RAS Humanoids conference are commonly cited as the most directly relevant venues for someone specifically interested in legged locomotion and humanoid control research, as opposed to broader AI/ML conferences.

[camila.jackson0]

This is exactly the kind of context I was looking for. A strong, well-documented personal project (even a modest DIY build or a solid simulation-based RL project) reportedly carries real weight in hiring for this field, partly because the field is young enough that a demonstrated hands-on track record can meaningfully substitute for a less-relevant formal credential. Kind of makes me think about how different this all looked even three years ago.

[rossi30]

Related question - A commonly cited skill gap in new-grad applicants is practical systems integration experience - many candidates are individually strong in ML or in mechanical design, but comparatively few have hands-on experience getting perception, planning, and control to work together reliably on real hardware under time pressure.

[noah_pate]

@rossi30 That's the official framing, at least - reality tends to lag a bit. Transitioning from industrial automation into humanoid-specific roles is a increasingly common and viable path, since a lot of the underlying skills (motion control, safety systems, real-time software) transfer directly, even though the specific dynamics and learned-control components are new.

[camila.jackson0]

This lines up with my experience. Remote work remains genuinely limited for most hands-on humanoid hardware roles, given the need for physical access to robots and test environments, though software-only roles (simulation, perception algorithms, offline learning) increasingly do offer remote or hybrid arrangements.

[diego.moore6]

@camila.jackson0 That's the official framing, at least - reality tends to lag a bit. How much ML background a controls role actually requires varies a lot by company and team - some whole-body control positions remain heavily classical-optimization-focused, while others increasingly expect familiarity with reinforcement learning or imitation learning even for what used to be a purely classical-controls job.

[scott21]

@diego.moore6 Ran into exactly this myself. The common academic path into this field is a master's or conversion course in robotics or machine learning, followed by an internship or research role at a known lab or company - a PhD is common but increasingly not strictly required for industry roles, especially on the applied engineering side. A whole-body control engineer's day-to-day work is a mix of formulating and tuning constrained optimization problems, debugging why a controller behaves differently on hardware than in simulation, and a surprising amount of time spent on numerical stability and solver performance rather than pure algorithm design. Reminds me a bit of the early drone hobbyist scene, honestly.

[benjaminsanchez]

@scott21 From what I've seen: How much ML background a controls role actually requires varies a lot by company and team - some whole-body control positions remain heavily classical-optimization-focused, while others increasingly expect familiarity with reinforcement learning or imitation learning even for what used to be a purely classical-controls job. Remote work remains genuinely limited for most hands-on humanoid hardware roles, given the need for physical access to robots and test environments, though software-only roles (simulation, perception algorithms, offline learning) increasingly do offer remote or hybrid arrangements.

[sarah.santos3]

Not to derail, but this reminds me of something adjacent: RSS (Robotics: Science and Systems), ICRA, and the IEEE-RAS Humanoids conference are commonly cited as the most directly relevant venues for someone specifically interested in legged locomotion and humanoid control research, as opposed to broader AI/ML conferences. Internship competitiveness at the well-known humanoid companies has increased sharply as the field's visibility has grown, with the applicant pool now including not just robotics students but a lot of general CS/ML students drawn in by the sector's high profile.