Emulation & Digital Twin Engineer

Palo Alto · Full-Time

About Foundational

Foundational is building a network of AI-native, autonomous factories for modern contract manufacturing — reshoring critical supply chains so companies can produce high-quality products domestically, quickly, and at competitive cost. Recent breakthroughs in robotics and physical AI have shifted autonomous manufacturing from theoretical to deployable, and we're focused on operationalizing these capabilities at scale during a decisive decade for American industrial leadership.

WHO — Who Thrives Here

At Foundational, we're building with people who want to own something — to do work that matters, in an environment where what you ship is what counts.

The people who thrive here:

• Take ownership before they're asked. They see the gap and close it.

• Operate with a high degree of judgment. We move fast, and good judgment travels farther than a playbook.

• Communicate directly — concise, clear, and candid, especially when stakes are high.

• Hold a high bar for themselves first, then for everyone around them.

• Are genuinely energized by hard problems in physical, real-world environments. Energized — not just interested.

• Stay effective when things are ambiguous, changing, or under pressure. That's the job.

This is a place for people who want to build something that has never existed before and leave a clear mark on it.

MISSION

We are looking for a Emulation & Digital Twin Engineer to build high-fidelity virtual machine tools and real-time factory emulators. In this role, you will be responsible for creating exact digital twins of CNC machining centers, sheet metal fabricators, and automated material handlers.

You will bridge the gap between deterministic machine logic (G-code, PLC signals, NC kernels) and NVIDIA’s accelerated physical AI ecosystem (Isaac Sim, Nemotron, and GR00T). Your work will enable us to completely simulate, optimize, and verify toolpaths, cycle times, robotic tending, and cognitive anomaly detection in a virtual factory environment before executing code on physical shop floors.

SKILLS

• CNC Machine Emulation: Develop and integrate software-in-the-loop (SIL) emulators for multi-axis CNC machines that precisely mimic controller behaviors, acceleration/deceleration profiles, and real-time execution of G-code/M-code.

• NVIDIA Omniverse Integration: Aggregate native machine CAD data and toolpath kinematics into OpenUSD format, bringing high-fidelity, photorealistic 3D machine environments into NVIDIA Omniverse.

• Isaac Sim Physical Validation: Utilize NVIDIA Isaac Sim / Isaac Lab alongside physics engines (like PhysX) to accurately simulate physical variables such as robotic machine tending (e.g., automated part loading/unloading), chip clearance, and bin picking via integrated simulation tools like Fanuc ROBOGUIDE.

• Cognitive CNC Operations: Implement NVIDIA Nemotron (LLMs/SLMs) to build agentic assistants capable of diagnosing CNC alarm codes, translating conversational requests into machine macros, and auto-generating Python code or G-code edits based on live simulation metrics.

• Physical AI Skills: Apply NVIDIA GR00T foundation models to train collaborative robots or dual-arm machine tenders to interact dynamically with complex, non-rigid or varying components without requiring rigid physical fixturing.

• Industrial Telemetry Sync: Establish ultra-low-latency data pipelines using OPC UA, MTConnect, or Siemens Industrial Edge to stream physical controller states directly back to the Omniverse twin for real-time playback and predictive maintenance modeling.

COMPETENCIES

Deep-Dive Skill Set Matrix

• To build this team effectively, look for candidates who score highly across these four distinct technological domains:

Domain

Required Core Competencies/Relevant Tools & Ecosystems

1. CNC & Industrial Automation

• Deep understanding of G-code / M-code dialects.

• Experience with NC kernels, PLC logic, and servo behaviors.

• Knowledge of machine coordinate systems, kinematics, and tool tables.

• Fanuc CNC (FOCAS API / ROBOGUIDE)

• Siemens SINUMERIK (Run MyVirtual Machine)

• Heidenhain iTNC / Haas NextGen Control

• MTConnect & OPC UA protocols

2. NVIDIA Physical AI Stack

• Building GPU-accelerated simulation workflows.

• Importing CAD/Robotics assets via SimReady OpenUSD templates.

• Leveraging world models and reinforcement learning frameworks.

• NVIDIA Isaac Sim & Isaac Lab

• NVIDIA Omniverse (Nucleus, Kit)

• NVIDIA Nemotron (for agentic tool use)

• Project GR00T (for physical manipulation)

3. Graphics & Asset Pipeline

• Mastery of OpenUSD composition (layers, variants, references).

• Converting native CAM/CAD data to lightweight simulation schemas.

• Rigid-body dynamics and physics collision boundaries.

• OpenUSD Python/C++ APIs

• Autodesk Fusion / Siemens NX / SolidWorks

• NVIDIA PhysX engine

4. Core Software Engineering

• Writing ultra-low latency, multi-threaded code.

• Mapping physical IoT data streams to 3D assets deterministically.

• Containerization and edge deployments.

• Python & Modern C++

• Linux environments

• ROS2 / Micro-ROS

• Docker / Kubernetes

These are the behavioral patterns that predict success here — in practice, under pressure.

• Industrial Interest: A genuine interest in (or experience with) manufacturing, robotics, or industrial automation. You’ll be building software that interacts with the physical world.

• Accountability — You own outcomes. If something's off track, you say so and fix it.

• Bias for action — You ship. You iterate. You move toward the hard thing.

• Clarity of communication — Direct and concise, especially when it counts.

• Learning agility — You get up to speed fast in unfamiliar territory.

• Resilience — You stay sharp when things are hard, ambiguous, or moving fast.

• High standards — You raise the bar rather than match it — and hold yourself to it first.

Why Foundational

This is a filter as much as it is an invitation.

We're turning reindustrialization from a talking point into an operating reality. The work is hard, the environment is demanding, and the stakes are real. We compensate with base, bonus, and equity to reflect impact, responsibility, and results, with meaningful upside for the people who help build and scale this company.

For those aligned with the mission and motivated by execution at scale, Foundational offers the opportunity to help define one of the most consequential industrial transformations of the next decade.

Foundational Industries is an Equal Opportunity Employer. We are committed to creating an inclusive environment for all employees and applicants. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, national origin, sex (including gender identity, sexual orientation, and pregnancy), age, disability, genetic information, protected veteran status, or any other characteristic protected by applicable law. Foundational complies with all applicable federal, state, and local laws governing nondiscrimination in employment. We evaluate every candidate on what they can do and who they are.