Data Collector (Teleoperator)

A front-line worker who records robot training data through teleoperation or wearable demonstration devices.

Data collector is a front-line job at embodied-AI companies and data-collection bases, producing training data. Workers follow a collection SOP (standard operating procedure): they wear a VR headset and operate a leader arm or exoskeleton to teleoperate a real robot, or wear a mocap suit, a head-mounted camera, and data gloves to perform the demonstration with their own hands directly, while the system logs video, joint angles, force, and other signals in sync. Imitation learning depends on large numbers of human demonstrations, so how consistent and correct a data collector's motions are directly determines whether the data is usable. In September 2026, China's Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security and other agencies announced a new occupation, “Embodied AI Robot Application Technician,” which lists data collector and trainer as sub-roles under it. Reports describe the work as repetitive and tedious, with equipment setup, resetting scenes, and re-recording taking up a large share of the time.

ExampleAccording to a China Securities Journal report from March 2026, the Beijing Humanoid Robot Innovation Center's data base has more than 120 robots and over 30 scenes — home, retail, production lines — where data collectors do real-robot teleoperation and motion-capture collection, producing about 15,000 hours of data a month.

Also called

Robot Trainer, AI Trainer

Related

Teleoperation · Data Collection SOP · Embodied AI Training Ground (Robot Data Collection Center) · Demonstration Data · Valid (Usable) Data · Embodied AI Robot Application Technician

Sources

北京人形：具身智能机器人应用技术员进入国家新职业序列 (Chinese)
钛媒体：机器人还没学会做家务，卖数据的已经先赚到了钱 (Chinese)
中证网：实探北京人形机器人数据基地，月产数据1.5万小时 (Chinese)

As of

2026-09