Robot Systems Engineer

Member of Technical Staff — Robot Systems

Location: San Francisco, CA — on-site, six days per week
Employment: Full-time
Compensation: $200,000–$350,000 base salary + competitive equity
Visa Support: Open to OPT, H-1B transfers, and new sponsorships

About the Opportunity

Our client is an early-stage robotics company developing and deploying robots for real-world physical work. The team brings together hardware, software, and machine learning engineers to build systems that operate reliably beyond the lab.

They’re seeking a Robot Systems Engineer to own the connections between physical hardware and the software infrastructure that powers it. This is a hands-on individual contributor role with responsibility for integrating equipment, solving problems across hardware and software, and supporting deployed systems.

What You’ll Do

• Build and maintain infrastructure that keeps deployed robots operating reliably under tight latency constraints.

• Integrate robot arms, teleoperation rigs, haptic devices, and sensors into production software stacks.

• Diagnose and resolve issues across device drivers, communication protocols, calibration systems, and physical hardware.

• Develop software interfaces and hardware abstraction layers that connect devices to data collection and machine learning pipelines.

• Partner with hardware and machine learning engineers to bring new capabilities into operation.

• Own integrations from initial development through deployment and ongoing troubleshooting.

Requirements

• 2+ years of embedded or systems engineering experience integrating physical hardware into software stacks.

• Strong software engineering skills and hands-on hardware integration experience. You should be comfortable building reliable software around embedded systems, hardware SDKs, and device interfaces.

• Production deployment experience with robots, sensors, or comparable hardware systems. You must be able to explain what you personally built, integrated, and shipped. Research or prototype experience alone is not sufficient.

• Ability to debug across hardware and software boundaries, including drivers, communication protocols, calibration, and physical devices.

• Broad integration ownership. This role extends beyond firmware development into the software and infrastructure needed to operate complete systems.

• Comfort working in a fast-moving startup environment, navigating ambiguity and taking responsibility for practical engineering outcomes.

• Availability to work on-site in San Francisco six days per week. This is a firm requirement.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience shipping software for production robotics, autonomous vehicles, drones, or other physical AI systems.

• Experience with real-time systems where low latency and uninterrupted operation matter.

• Familiarity with ROS or other robotics middleware.

• Experience delivering hardware-software systems at a startup or on a small team with broad technical ownership.

Compensation & Work Arrangement

• Base salary: $200,000–$350,000

• Equity: Competitive equity package

• Location: San Francisco, California

• Schedule: On-site, six days per week

• Employment: Full-time employee position; not a contract or consulting engagement

• Visa support: Open to OPT candidates, H-1B transfers, and new sponsorships

Interview Process

1. Hiring Manager Introduction: Discuss your background, technical ownership, and alignment with the team’s working environment.

2. Technical Screen: Live coding and hardware integration concepts.

3. On-site Work Trial: Robotics platform architecture and design.