Pickle Robot, a provider of AI-powered robotic systems for autonomous truck unloading, is significantly expanding its team, announcing plans to hire 50 new engineers by September 2025.
The hiring surge comes as customer demand accelerates for intelligent automation solutions that can operate at human scale across logistics environments.
The company’s expansion signals strong momentum as warehouse operators look to boost efficiency, safety, and throughput with automation.
Pickle’s technology, which focuses on automating one of the most physically demanding and complex supply chain tasks – unloading trucks – has proven its value in real-world deployments and is rapidly scaling to meet market needs.
AJ Meyer, CEO and founder of Pickle Robot, says: “Our customers are asking for intelligent, adaptable robots that work in today’s environments – right now, not in five years.
“That demand is driving us to grow our engineering organization rapidly and double down on innovation. We’re not only scaling our product team – we’re accelerating deep integration with broader automation ecosystems, from sorting to picking to palletizing.”
The 50 new engineering hires will be spread across AI, robotics, software, and systems development. Pickle’s growth also includes expanding collaboration with leading academic researchers in physical AI and robotic learning. The company is working closely with top labs at Harvard, MIT, and Columbia, including:
- Harvard’s AI and Robotics Lab (Yilun Du), focused on embodied intelligence in physical spaces
- Columbia University’s Yunzhu Li, researching robotic perception and tactile sensing
- MIT CSAIL’s Russ Tedrake, an expert in robot locomotion, dynamics, and control systems
Meyer says: “These partnerships bring cutting-edge research directly into our development cycles and help ensure our robots stay ahead of the complexity curve as we scale across messy, real-world logistics environments.”
To lead this next phase of engineering growth, Pickle has appointed Fred Hopke as vice president of engineering. Hopke brings deep experience from Verve Motion, Symbotic, and SharkNinja, where he helped scale high-performance robotic and AI-driven systems.
Hopke says: “Pickle is solving one of the most technically challenging problems in automation – bringing robust, intelligent robotics to the warehouse dock. “I’m excited to build out a world-class team and help bring this vision to life at scale.”
Founded by an MIT alum, Pickle Robot continues to shape the frontier of Physical AI, combining advanced machine learning and real-time robotic control to solve labor-intensive challenges in supply chain operations.
