He received an MA in mechanical engineering from ETH Zurich in 1983 and, in 1989, a PhD degree with distinction Silver Medal ETH for his work on Electro-magnetically Suspended Milling Spindle with Active Digital Control.

After completing his doctorate, Siegwart was employed as a research assistant at various universities (ETH Zurich, HTL Zurich (since 2001 ZHAW), Stanford University California) and, in 1990, became Vice-President R&D at MECOS Traxler AG.

From 2010 to 2014, Siegwart was Vice President Research and Corporate Relations of ETH Zurich.

Siegwart's research activities focus on mobile robot design and navigation – localization and mapping, planning in dynamic environments, human–robot interaction, locomotion concepts for rough terrain, mobile micro-robots, space rovers, autonomous cars, and unmanned aerial vehicles.

Siegwart is founder and co-founder of various high-tech startups, such as Shockfish Communication Ltd. (1999), BlueBotics Ltd. (2001),[5] or ALSTOM Inf> and Aspection Robotics Ltd.