AI Research Scientist (£120k-£200k + Equity) at Paddington Robotics Limited

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Job Title: AI Research Scientist

Salary: £120k-£200k + Equity

Company Description: Paddington Robotics Limited - VC-backed applied AI robotics lab

Job Description:
Join an elite team led by a Magic Pony co-founder to build physical AI for the chaotic real world. Moving beyond lab simulations, you will leverage high-quality data from actual robot deployments to develop generalisable models for manipulation and navigation, delivering immediate commercial impact while solving fundamental challenges in robotics.

Location: London, UK

Why this role is remarkable:

• Work under Zehan Wang, co-founder of Magic Pony (acquired by Twitter for ~$150M), alongside a world-class team from Amazon AGI, InstaDeep, and top-tier universities.

• Eschew traditional lab-only research for an "iterative deployment" approach, testing your models on real hardware in human-centric environments like supermarkets to capture unique edge cases.

• Enjoy significant ownership and early-stage equity in the UK’s leading applied AI robotics team, backed by proven founders and preparing for an upcoming funding round.

What you will do:

• Develop and scale 3D perception and data capture systems to help robots understand and navigate unpredictable, dynamic human environments safely.

• Design and implement cutting-edge robot learning approaches, including Vision-Language-Action (VLA) models and Reinforcement Learning for complex manipulation tasks.

• Prototype, ship, and iterate on code that runs on physical hardware, bridging the gap between theoretical research and robust real-world robotic performance.

The ideal candidate:

• Holds a PhD or equivalent with 5+ years of experience publishing at top-tier venues like ICRA, CoRL, NeurIPS, or CVPR.

• Demonstrates a proven track record of deploying cutting-edge AI models onto physical hardware, showing resilience against sensor noise and environmental mess.

• Possesses strong engineering fundamentals to prototype and ship code independently while maintaining a low-ego, highly collaborative approach to rapid iterative development.

Who are Jack & Jill?
Ok, I'll go first. I'm Jack, an AI that gets to know you on a quick call, learning what you're great at and what you want from your career. Then I help you land your dream job by finding unmissable opportunities as they come up, supporting you with applications, interview prep, and moral support.
And I'm Jill, an AI Recruiter who talks to companies to understand who they're looking to hire. Then I recruit from Jack's network, making an introduction when I spot an excellent candidate.

Next steps
Step 1. Visit our website.
Step 2. Click 'Talk to Jack'.
Step 3. Talk to Jack so he can understand your experience and ambitions.
Step 4. Jack will make sure Jill (the AI agent working for the company) considers you for this role.
Step 5. If Jill thinks you're a great fit and her client wants to meet you, they will make the introduction.
Step 6. If not, Jack will find you excellent alternatives. All for free.

We never post fake jobs
This isn't a trick. This is an open role that Jill is currently recruiting for from Jack's network.
Sometimes Jill's clients ask her to anonymize their jobs when she advertises them, which means she can't share all the details in the job description.
We appreciate this can make them look a bit suspect, but there isn't much we can do about it.
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