Mechatronics Engineer, VLA Gripping & Assembly (Lead)

Sorting Robotics builds and deploys robotic systems for real manufacturing floors. We are hiring the Cognizant Engineer (CogE) to own our next flagship: a VLA-powered (Vision-Language-Action) gripping and assembly system. You will lead this product from the rig on the bench to machines running in customers facilities, and own its technical success end to end. This is a hands-on technical leadership seat. You will design the end-effector and mechatronics, integrate vision and force/tactile sensing into a 6DOF arm, and operationalize learned manipulation policies (VLA models) so the system reliably grips, places, and assembles in the real world. You work directly with the founder. What you will own: The VLA gripping and assembly system cradle to grave: concept, design, build, bring-up, deployment, and field reliability. Gripper and mechatronics design: end-effector, actuation, GD&T, rapid prototyping (3D print, laser, CNC, PCB), production-ready designs. Perception and sensing in the manipulation loop: vision, force/torque, tactile, and the 6DOF arm. Operationalizing VLA / learned policies: demonstration data pipeline, policy inference into real-time control, grasp/assembly evaluation, sim-to-real iteration. You should have: 5+ years taking robotic systems from concept to delivery. Identify as an AI native engineer. Real gripper / end-effector / manipulation experience and 6DOF arm integration. Comfort at the hardware + ML boundary: you do not have to train VLAs from scratch, but you can integrate learned policies, run inference on a robot, curate demo data, and debug why a grasp fails (ROS/ROS 2, OpenVLA / pi-0 style policies, imitation learning, sim-to-real a strong plus). Strong Python and physical prototyping tools (CAD, 3D printing, CNC, PCB). On-site in Van Nuys / Los Angeles. Contract-to-hire or direct full-time. Comfortable with cannabis a plus (we build for the legal cannabis market).