Humanoid robotics companies hiring in 2026: Figure, 1X, Apptronik, Agility, and more

Everyone I know in the robotics industry has an opinion about which humanoid robotics company is going to matter in five years. What almost nobody has is a clear view of which humanoid companies are actually hiring hard right now.

Below is the picture straight from ATS feeds, as of late March. Six or seven names dominate the space, and their hiring paces are wildly different from what press coverage would suggest.

The humanoid hiring board

The core humanoid cohort with active US roles:

Apptronik has the most active postings in the group at 96, edging out Boston Dynamics. That surprised me. Public coverage would suggest 1X or Figure is bigger, and Boston Dynamics is a known quantity. But Apptronik has been hiring aggressively out of Austin and their catalog presence is real.

1X Technologies at 65 active roles just came off a step-function increase (0 to 65 in a single month between April and May). If I had to guess what that signals, it's a fundraise announcement is imminent. When a company goes from no new postings to 65 in a month, they're staffing for something specific.

Physical Intelligence at 25 active roles is quiet by count but the roles are unusual. Their whole team is Series A but they're publishing very senior comp bands ($190K-$330K on some postings). They're hiring almost exclusively for research-forward ML engineering and are one of the few humanoid-adjacent companies where all the roles are essentially ML research.

The Q1 to Q2 velocity picture

Comparing the 30 days before this snapshot against the 30 days before that:

1X and Figure both went from zero postings to fresh hiring waves. Apptronik came off the peak (-17). Agility and Boston Dynamics are net expanding at healthy paces. Physical Intelligence started actively posting.

The Apptronik cool-off isn't a red flag. Their 96 total active means they're still by far the biggest hirer in the group — they just did an aggressive Q1 hiring wave and are normalizing.

Compensation across humanoid

For the companies that disclose comp, based on median midpoint from active postings:

Boston Dynamics is now the lowest-paying humanoid company. Being an established, acquired, non-hyped company means their comp bands are closer to old-guard robotics than to the new humanoid hype. If pure comp is your top criterion, Apptronik, Physical Intelligence, or 1X will pay more.

Agility's spread is interesting: median $188K but P90 max of $329K. That means their leadership and principal-level roles pay very well, but the general engineering median is at market rate. Not unusual — this is common at Series B companies with expanding technical leadership.

Where each humanoid company is

Apptronik — Austin. Working on Apollo (general-purpose humanoid). Founded by Rice University roboticists. Has real hardware deployed with pilot customers.

1X Technologies — Norway + US. Working on NEO Beta (household humanoid). Backed by OpenAI. Roles are heavily concentrated in the US despite the Norwegian HQ.

Agility Robotics — Salem, Oregon. Working on Digit (warehouse-first humanoid). Has real customers running Digit units in production at Amazon and GXO. The most commercially deployed humanoid in the group.

Boston Dynamics — Waltham, MA. Atlas (electric version) is the current focus. Owned by Hyundai. Extremely well-established engineering culture.

Physical Intelligence — San Francisco. Not building a humanoid per se; building foundation models for robotics. But they're absolutely in the humanoid conversation because the models they train are what the other humanoid companies will use.

Figure AI — Sunnyvale. Working on Figure 02. Very buzzy in public coverage.

Sanctuary AI — Vancouver, BC. Working on Phoenix. Smaller footprint than the others.

What to actually do with this

Three practical calls if you're a robotics engineer looking at humanoid.

If you want the most bets on the table: Apptronik. They have the most active roles across the widest range of disciplines. Whether or not Apollo becomes the humanoid that matters, the team you'd join is high-quality and the org is scaling faster than any of its peers.

If you want the highest-leverage individual role: Physical Intelligence. 25 active roles at a Series A means every hire has to matter. If you can get in on the ML research team, you'll have unusual influence over the direction of foundation robotics models.

If you want a proven customer story: Agility. Digit is actually working at Amazon and GXO. Every other humanoid company is at pilot or pre-pilot. Agility has revenue, which changes the risk profile.

The companies I'm not covering

I intentionally excluded a few names from the table:

Tesla Optimus — Tesla doesn't have humanoid-specific job listings that I can cleanly identify. Most Tesla robotics roles route through the general Tesla Autopilot posting universe.

Unitree — Chinese company. Their US hiring is essentially zero.

Neura Robotics — Some public buzz but very few active US roles.

Sanctuary AI — Canadian, small US footprint.

If a company you'd expect to see isn't here, they're probably in one of those buckets or between hiring waves.

Methodology

Data pulled from active job listings on GreatRobots.ai as of late March 2026. Every listing is fetched directly from the employer's own ATS. Comp bands are from disclosed salary ranges on those postings, filtered to US roles with both a min and a max.

Browse the full company list for the broader robotics catalog. If a specific humanoid company you're curious about is missing, email hello@greatrobots.ai.