Robotics Engineer (PhD) - Manufacturing Automation en Santa Oliva, España

Robotics Engineer (PhD) - Manufacturing Automation

Hybrid Santa Oliva

Additive manufacturing has largely solved how to print a part. What it has not solved is everything that happens after the build finishes: depowdering, cutting parts off the plate, removing supports, deburring, polishing, and measuring whether the result is actually within tolerance. Today that work is manual, slow and one of the main reasons AM struggles to scale.

We are looking for a hands-on Robotics Engineer to automate it.

This is a greenfield role at the front of a new programme. You will be the first engineer dedicated to it: you will choose much of the hardware, define the stack and take robotic cells from an empty bench to something that reliably finishes real parts. Early on the work is exploratory and fast-moving — build it, try it, learn what breaks, rebuild it and the results are shown to customers, partners and investors. As the processes prove out, the role grows into owning them properly: repeatability, cycle time, safety and integration into our production workflows on Morph.

If you want a defined spec handed to you, this is the wrong role. If you want to point a robot at an unsolved manufacturing problem and find out what works, it is a good one.

Applicants must have the right to work in Spain .

What you will do

• Prototype, build and iterate robotic cells for AM post-processing: support and substrate removal, depowdering, deburring, polishing and surface finishing, part handling, and in-process measurement.

• Programme and integrate industrial and collaborative robot arms (UR, ABB, KUKA, Fanuc or similar), including force and compliance control for contact-heavy tasks such as polishing and support removal.

• Design and build your own end-effectors, tooling and fixturing, and turn them around quickly using printed and machined parts alongside off-the-shelf grippers, spindles and sensors.

• Generate robot toolpaths from part CAD, STL and build files, and adapt them to the geometry actually in front of the robot rather than the nominal model.

• Integrate vision and metrology — 2D cameras, structured-light or laser 3D scanning, touch probing — for part location, process verification and dimensional inspection.

• Take a cell from a working demo to a dependable process: cycle time, repeatability, changeover, failure modes, and the risk assessment needed to run it safely (ISO 10218, ISO/TS 15066 for collaborative operation).

• Connect cell data and process parameters into Morph so what happens on the shop floor is traceable and repeatable.

• Set up and run live demonstrations for customers, partners and investors, and document honestly what worked, what did not and what industrialising it would take.

Who you are

• PhD in robotics, mechatronics, mechanical, electronic, or control engineering (Essential)

• 2-5 years developing robotic or automated systems, including real time spent on a shop floor and not only in simulation.

• Strong Python and working C++, with sound software practice (version control, testing, code review).

• Practical experience with ROS/ROS 2 and with at least one robot vendor's native programming environment.

• Comfortable with hardware end to end: sensors, actuators, pneumatics, motor drives, PLCs and industrial buses (CAN, EtherCAT, Modbus, Profinet).

• A working command of kinematics, motion planning, coordinate frames and robot calibration. Experience with force control or compliant manipulation is a strong plus.

• Enough mechanical design ability to design and build your own tooling rather than wait for someone else to.

• Comfortable with ambiguity: willing to build something rough, prove or disprove it quickly and start again.

• Working proficiency in English. Spanish is useful but not required.

Nice to have

• Familiarity with additive manufacturing and its post-processing chain.

• Abrasive and surface-finishing process knowledge.

• Machine vision and hand-eye calibration.

• Offline programming and robot CAM.

• Metrology: GD&T, CMM, structured-light scanning, point-cloud alignment and inspection reporting.

What we offer

• Competitive salary based on experience and qualifications.

• A blank sheet: you decide how this capability gets built and you are the person who owns it as it grows.

• Direct involvement in cutting-edge programmes across multiple industries.

• A multidisciplinary team of engineers and innovators to build alongside.

• Access to state-of-the-art tools and facilities.

• Visibility, the cells you build are what we put in front of customers, partners and investors.

• A supportive, dynamic and innovation-driven culture.