The Mission
At GRAM, we believe the next great leap for humanity will be physical, not digital. What AGI is to bits, Self-Replication (SR) is to atoms. As an SR research and deployment company, our mission is to make humanity galactic by enabling physical exponential growth. To achieve this, we are conducting foundational research across general-purpose robotics, artificial intelligence, biology, and materials science to enable SR within our lifetimes.
Our first step is to challenge the consensus that robots should look like us. We believe true progress comes from optimizing for function over form. We are creating a new embodiment for intelligence, designed from first principles to build the future physical economy, on and off-world.
The Role
A machine's body is only as capable as the mind that drives it. This role is for the engineers who breathe life into the hardware, teaching our Insectoid robot how to move, perceive, and act in the physical world. You will be responsible for creating the algorithms and software that form the robot's intelligence, from low-level motor skills to high-level reasoning.
This is an opportunity to solve foundational problems in AI and robotics on a novel morphology that has no precedent. You will work at the frontier of control theory, reinforcement learning, and computer vision to give our robot the ability to navigate and interact with complex, unstructured environments, creating the intelligent foundation for its ultimate mission.
Key Responsibilities:
Architect and develop GRAM's proprietary, large-scale simulation platform, creating a high-fidelity virtual world for training and validating our robots.
Optimize every aspect of the simulation for performance, from the physics engine to the rendering pipeline, to enable massive parallelization for data generation and RL training.
Implement and verify realistic models of the robot's dynamics, sensors, actuators, and the environments in which it will operate.
Build a robust set of APIs and tools that empower our research teams to rapidly create complex scenarios, define experiments, and gather critical data.
Collaborate closely with the robotics and AI teams to solve the critical sim-to-real gap, ensuring that behaviors developed in simulation transfer robustly to physical hardware.
About You
You are a first-principles thinker who is energized by solving problems that have no playbook. You are drawn to ambitious, long-term missions and want to build technology that fundamentally changes our physical capabilities. You thrive in a high-agency environment where you are given the ownership and resources to tackle core challenges.
Basic Qualifications:
MS in Computer Science, Engineering, or a related field with 3+ years of experience in high-performance software development.
Expert proficiency in C++ for building performance-critical applications.
A strong foundation in 3D mathematics and physics principles.
Experience working with 3D graphics APIs (e.g., OpenGL, Vulkan) or physics engines (e.g., MuJoCo, PhysX, Bullet).
Preferred Qualifications:
A PhD in a relevant field with a focus on simulation, computer graphics, or robotics.
Experience building large-scale simulators for robotics, autonomous vehicles, or game development.
Expertise in GPU programming (e.g., CUDA) for massive parallelization.
Experience with domain randomization and other sim-to-real techniques.
A portfolio of complex, performant simulation projects.
Location
This is an on-site role at our research lab in El Segundo, California. We offer significant relocation assistance for exceptional candidates.
Interview Process
After submitting your application, we review your portfolio and any exceptional work you've shipped. If your application demonstrates the caliber we seek, you'll enter our interview process, which is designed for speed and substance. We aim to complete it within one week from start to finish.
Your total compensation reflects both the significance of early-stage equity and competitive market rates. The following is the general framework for all roles at GRAM.
- Company-Wide Base Salary Range: $75,000 - $300,000 USD, calibrated to your impact potential
- Equity: Substantial ownership stake befitting founding team members
- Benefits: Health, dental, and vision coverage; all meals are paid for; relocation assistance
GRAM is an equal opportunity employer. We evaluate solely on capability and drive.
Why Join?
We are an early, focused team of scientists and engineers building the system that builds itself. GRAM is funded by leading investors and long-term visionaries. We operate without bureaucracy. Ownership and leadership flow to those who demonstrate exceptional capability, and every team member works directly on our core technology. We are based in El Segundo, the heart of America's industrial future, focused on solving one of the most important problems of our time.
Top Skills
What We Do
Humanity's birthright is to become galactic. GRAM is founded to serve this mission. We are a foundational AI and robotics startup birthing the machines and intelligence necessary to solve the physical labor bottleneck preventing space industrialization.
Our first product is a general-purpose insectoid designed for work in vast swarms for operation in extreme environments. Over the coming century, our systems will build the critical infrastructure needed for humanity's expansion across the Milky Way.
