San Francisco, California, United States · On-site
$200k–$300k/yr
Chef Robotics is accelerating the deployment of intelligent machines in the physical world, starting with food production — the sector facing the largest labor shortage in the U.S., with 1.14M unfilled jobs today and 3.1…
Skills: Imitation Learning, Reinforcement Learning, PyTorch, Python, Robot Manipulation
San Francisco, California, United States · On-site
$200k–$300k/yr
Chef Robotics is accelerating the deployment of intelligent machines in the physical world, starting with food production — the sector facing the largest labor shortage in the U.S., with 1.14M unfilled jobs today and 3.1…
Skills: PyTorch, Python, Foundation Models, Robot Learning, Generative Modeling
Remote OK
$140k–$170k/yr
Chef Robotics is accelerating the deployment of intelligent machines in the physical world, starting with food production — the sector facing the largest labor shortage in the U.S., with 1.14M unfilled jobs today and 3.1…
Skills: Enterprise Sales, Outbound Discovery, Complex Negotiations, Closing, Pipeline Management
Sign up with Clera and we'll reach out the moment a role actually fits you — no more spraying applications into the void.
Design and train ML manipulation policies for dexterous food handling using various end effectors. Own the end-to-end process from defining data collection strategies to deploying and debugging policies on physical robots.
Requires an MS or PhD in Robotics, ML, or CS with over 5 years of experience in robotics manipulation and visuomotor control. Must have strong PyTorch and Python skills and a proven track record of deploying policies to real hardware.
Chef Robotics is accelerating the deployment of intelligent machines in the physical world, starting with food production — the sector facing the largest labor shortage in the U.S., with 1.14M unfilled jobs today and 3.1M projected by 2030. These roles can't be offshored, making robotics essential to keeping production onshore and strengthening America's manufacturing base.
Our AI-powered robots automate food prep and assembly in commercial kitchens and food manufacturing, and have already produced over 110 million meals in production — generating the world's largest proprietary dataset for deformable food manipulation. Backed by investors including Kleiner Perkins, Construct, Bloomberg Beta, and Promus Ventures, and built by a team from Cruise, Zoox, Google, Tesla, and Amazon Robotics, Chef is rapidly scaling with multiple multi-year contracts and a mission to put an intelligent robot in every commercial kitchen.
Chef Robotics is building autonomous robots that work alongside humans in commercial food preparation environments. Manipulation is one of the hardest open problems in robotics — and food makes it harder. Unlike structured industrial parts, food items are deformable, visually similar, irregularly shaped, and behave differently depending on temperature, moisture, and preparation state. At Chef, we're solving this in production, every day, across a growing menu of meal types and preparation configurations.
As a Senior ML Engineer, Manipulation, you will own the learning systems that enable our robots to reliably pick, place, and handle diverse food classes using multiple end effectors — from suction grippers to multi-finger hands. You will work end-to-end: from defining data collection strategies and training policies, to deploying and debugging those policies on physical robots in real environments.
We are a small, high-ownership team. We work onsite five days a week and move with startup urgency.
\nIn this role, you will:Chef Robotics is solving one of the hardest problems in AI and robotics — and we ship. Our robots are in production today, generating real data that trains the next generation of food AI. Backed by Kleiner Perkins, Construct, Bloomberg Beta, and Promus Ventures, and built by a team from Cruise, Zoox, Google, Tesla, and Amazon Robotics, we're scaling fast with multiple multi-year enterprise contracts. If you want to build physical AI with real-world deployments and real impact, Chef is the place.
Physical AI for the food industry
Chef’s mission is to empower humans by accelerating the advent of intelligent machines in the world. We believe physical AI (robots that can perceive, reason, and act in the real world) represents the next frontier of AI. While software AI has transformed how we work and communicate, the physical world still runs largely on human labor. That world represents 90% of global GDP, and it’s where AI’s impact will be most profound. Nowhere is this more evident than in food. In 2023, there were over 1.1 million unfilled jobs in food preparation and service. These labor shortages are forcing food companies to leave millions of dollars in unmet demand on the table each year and driving more of the food supply chain offshore, creating significant risks for US food security. Chef Robotics is building physical AI for food. Our AI-enabled robots handle the flexible, variable work of food assembly and preparation (work that has historically required human intervention). By deploying robots that learn from real production data across hundreds of ingredients and customers, we’ve built the world’s largest real-world food manipulation dataset and become the market leader in food robotics. The result: food companies can meet demand, grow production, and keep their supply chains onshore, while their teams focus on the work that humans do best.
Offices: 200 Kansas St, STE 204, San Francisco, California 94103, US
Physical AI for the food industry
Chef’s mission is to empower humans by accelerating the advent of intelligent machines in the world. We believe physical AI (robots that can perceive, reason, and act in the real world) represents the next frontier of AI. While software AI has transformed how we work and communicate, the physical world still runs largely on human labor. That world represents 90% of global GDP, and it’s where AI’s impact will be most profound. Nowhere is this more evident than in food. In 2023, there were over 1.1 million unfilled jobs in food preparation and service. These labor shortages are forcing food companies to leave millions of dollars in unmet demand on the table each year and driving more of the food supply chain offshore, creating significant risks for US food security. Chef Robotics is building physical AI for food. Our AI-enabled robots handle the flexible, variable work of food assembly and preparation (work that has historically required human intervention). By deploying robots that learn from real production data across hundreds of ingredients and customers, we’ve built the world’s largest real-world food manipulation dataset and become the market leader in food robotics. The result: food companies can meet demand, grow production, and keep their supply chains onshore, while their teams focus on the work that humans do best.
Offices: 200 Kansas St, STE 204, San Francisco, California 94103, US
