Applied Research Scientist in Cognitive Robotics & Robot Reasoning

What we are looking for 

We do not expect you to match every keyword. We are looking for depth, curiosity, and the ability to turn research ideas into working cognitive robotic systems. 

Essential 

• PhD in Robotics, Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, Computer Vision, Cognitive Systems, Automated Planning, or a related field; or equivalent research experience. 

• Strong background in machine learning, deep learning, symbolic/neural reasoning, planning, or foundation models applied to robotics or embodied AI. 

• Hands-on experience designing, training, fine-tuning, or adapting AI model architectures for robotics or embodied AI, including implementation choices around data, losses, evaluation, and deployment - not only API use or prompt engineering. 

• Experience connecting perception, language, knowledge representations, planning, decision-making, and action in embodied or robotic systems. 

• Strong programming skills in Python. 

• Ability to work with real robotic systems, experimental platforms, or realistic robotic demonstrators - not only offline datasets or simulation. 

• Scientific and technical maturity: ability to define problems, test hypotheses, analyse results, integrate components, and communicate findings clearly. 

• Good written and spoken English. 

Highly valuable 

• Experience with LLMs, VLMs, multimodal foundation models, transformers, neuro-symbolic methods, task and motion planning, hierarchical planning, memory architectures, or uncertainty-aware reasoning. 

• Experience with end-to-end model development and training pipelines for robotics foundation models or agentic systems: multimodal data curation, pre-training or fine-tuning, PEFT/LoRA, synthetic or simulation data, ablations, benchmarking, and real-robot validation. 

• Experience with ROS/ROS 2. 

• Experience with PyTorch, TensorFlow, JAX, or similar frameworks. 

• Experience with semantic or 3D scene understanding, affordance modelling, world models, simulation, manipulation-aware reasoning, human-robot interaction, or human instruction following. 

• Publications, open-source contributions, project demos, or research prototypes in cognitive robotics, robot reasoning, embodied AI, foundation models for robotics, or robot learning. 

• Experience in European or collaborative R&D projects. 

This role is probably a good fit if... 

• You have worked on AI methods that help robots understand a situation, reason about what to do, explain or justify decisions, adapt to new contexts, or connect high-level goals to physical action. 

• You enjoy both research and implementation. 

• You are comfortable moving between papers, code, experiments, robots, datasets, simulations, and project discussions. 

• You want to work in applied research: scientifically ambitious, but connected to real systems, demonstrators, and industrial impact. 

• You are attracted by the opportunity to contribute to a European flagship effort in robotics foundation models, with a strong focus on reasoning, grounding, and trustworthy embodied intelligence. 

This role is probably not the best fit if your main experience is limited to... 

• Generic LLM chatbot development without robotics, embodiment, planning, or grounding in the physical world. 

• Language-only evaluation or prompt engineering with no connection to robot perception, action, or decision-making. 

• Pure navigation, PLC programming, or classical control with no AI, reasoning, or robot-learning component. 

• Simulation-only research with no interest in deploying, validating, or adapting methods on real robotic systems. 

• Software front-end or general AI engineering unrelated to physical robotic systems. 

What Eurecat offers 

Eurecat is a leading technology centre in Catalonia, working at the intersection of research, technology transfer, and industrial innovation. 

In our Robotics and Automation Unit, the Cognitive Robotics Group develops applied research in robot cognition, reasoning, behaviour, perception, human-robot interaction, autonomous systems, manipulation-aware intelligence, and foundation models for robotics. 

You will join a team with strong experience in European projects, industrial collaborations, and real robotic demonstrators. Our laboratory is located in Cerdanyola del Valles, near Barcelona, within a growing robotics and AI ecosystem. 

Additionally, you will have these  benefits: 

• Permanent contract. 

• Hybrid work. 

• Flexible schedule. 

• Shorter workday on Fridays and summer schedule. 

• Flexible compensation package: health insurance, transport, lunch vouchers, training, kindergarten, and other benefits. 

• Access to Eurecat Academy courses. 

• Language training in English, Catalan, and Spanish. 

• Participation in a major European robotics and AI project with leading academic and industrial partners. 

• The opportunity to build long-term research lines in cognitive robotics and robot reasoning beyond a single project.