RL Research Engineer

**Job Title:** RL Research Engineer (Planning \& Control) **Location:** Vapi, Gujarat **Employment Type:** Full\-Time **Overview** We are seeking a highly skilled **Reinforcement Learning (RL) Research Engineer** specializing in planning and control. The role focuses on designing learning\-based planners and policies (RL, imitation learning, model\-based) and integrating them with classical control approaches to enable safe, efficient, and robust autonomous operation across multiple domains including humanoids, AGVs, cars, and drones. **Key Responsibilities** * Develop and train policies from human demonstrations and teleoperation data. * Implement safe reinforcement learning approaches with constraints. * Design long\-horizon planners using world models and uncertainty\-aware control. * Implement safety shields, fallback controllers, and verify\-before\-deploy pipelines. * Collaborate with cross\-functional teams to integrate RL policies with control systems. * Conduct sim\-to\-real transfer and ensure policies generalize in real\-world settings. * Design reward functions and implement offline RL and behavioral cloning strategies. **Must\-Haves** * 4–8\+ years of experience in RL and control systems. * Strong expertise in Model Predictive Control (MPC), Control Barrier Functions (CBFs), reachability analysis, or similar methods. * Master’s or PhD in Robotics, Control, AI, or a related field. * Experience with sim\-to\-real transfer, reward design, offline RL, and behavioral cloning. **Nice\-to\-Haves** * Experience with multi\-agent reinforcement learning. * Knowledge of hierarchical options and diffusion policies. * Familiarity with long\-horizon task planning in complex environments. **Success Metrics** * Task success rate in target domains. * Rate of human or system interventions during execution. * Compliance with energy, jerk, and other control limits. * Minimization of constraint violations in real\-world deployment. **Domain Notes** **Humanoids:** \- Stable locomotion and bimanual task RL. **AGVs (Autonomous Ground Vehicles):** \- Navigation in mixed human zones, traffic rule compliance, and aisle etiquette. **Cars:** \- Interactive merges, handling unprotected turns, and safe navigation in dynamic traffic. **Drones:** \- Wind\-robust flight, safe landing and perching maneuvers. **Application Instructions** Interested candidates may apply by sending their resume and cover letter to **parijat.patel@merai.co** with the subject line: **“RL Research Engineer (Planning \& Control) Application”** .