Applied R&D Engineer

• Degree in Computer Science, Robotics, Electrical, Mechatronics, Physics or a related engineering field, or equivalent proof of what you have built.

• Strong software engineering in Python, with experience shipping and maintaining tools that other people rely on.

• Hands-on experience with hardware: integrating sensors, cameras, actuators or embedded boards and getting them to work on a real setup.

• Practical experience training, fine-tuning or deploying modern AI models (deep learning, computer vision, LLMs or VLMs).

• The judgment to design a fast, honest test for a new technology and report a clear go or no-go.

• Based in Barcelona or willing to relocate (100% on-site role).

• Experience with ROS2, robot arms or other robotics stacks.

• Background building internal platforms: backends, dashboards, data pipelines or developer tooling.

• Experience with robot learning methods such as imitation learning, reinforcement learning or vision-language-action models.

• Personal projects, open-source work or publications that show you explore new technology on your own.

We are looking for an Applied R&D Engineer to join Internal Engineering, the team that explores what THEKER will build next and builds the tools the rest of the company runs on. You will test new hardware before anyone else in the company touches it. You will also build the internal software our engineers and operators use every day, and push the AI models and techniques that could change how our robots learn.

There is no fixed roadmap handed down to you: part of the job is deciding which new sensor, actuator, model or tool deserves a week of your time and which one does not.

On a normal week you might benchmark a new gripper or camera on a real cell, ship an internal tool that saves the deployment team hours of manual work, and run experiments with a recent AI model to see if it holds up outside a paper. Success means THEKER adopts things earlier and faster because you proved they work, and the company moves faster because the internal software you own is reliable.

• Scout new hardware and products (sensors, cameras, grippers, compute, robot platforms) that could improve THEKER's robots.

• Design and run test campaigns on new hardware, then deliver a clear recommendation to the engineering teams.

• Track what the best robotics and AI labs are releasing, and share short, actionable findings with the team.

• Research and develop recent AI models and techniques, and prototype the ones that could apply to our robots or our internal workflows.

• Build internal software used across the company, from engineering tools to operations dashboards and automations.

• Own the maintenance of the internal tools you ship: monitoring, bug fixes, documentation and user support.

• You're excited by a fast-paced and ambitious environment. The opportunity ahead of us is enormous, and we're going all in to capture it.

• You want responsibility early on, delivering at world-class standards for leading clients.

• You enjoy experimenting, iterating quickly, and embracing change as part of the learning process.

• You get restless when a new technology comes out and you haven't tried it yet, and you're just as happy keeping a tool running for the people who depend on it.