Role: Senior Robotics Software Engineer

Location: New York, NY (Onsite)

Our client is a YC-backed robotics company is building AI-native industrial robots designed for real-world warehouse environments. Their systems automate mission-critical warehouse labor end-to-end, beginning with e-commerce order packaging.

Unlike traditional industrial automation, their robots are designed to be flexible and rapidly deployable, with a focus on real-world performance and immediate ROI in live production environments. The company operates with a deployment-first approach, where hardware, software, autonomy, and operations are treated as a single integrated system.

The company has robots actively deployed in U.S. warehouses today, generating real-world data and revenue. Their long-term approach centers on leveraging this deployment data to continuously improve system performance through iterative learning.

Founded in 2024, the company is part of Y Combinator S24 and has raised $12M in funding. The team consists of approximately 10 full-time engineers and operates fully in-person in New York.

Position Overview:

This role focuses on owning core robotics software systems that directly impact robot performance and reliability in live production environments. The engineer will work across the full robotics stack, including control systems, motion planning, simulation, and teleoperation interfaces.

The position involves close collaboration with the founding team and cross-functional engineering partners across hardware, machine learning, and operations. The work is directly tied to robots currently deployed in production, with tight feedback loops between software, hardware, and real-world performance.

Key Responsibilities:

• Own control interfaces and on-robot software for production robotics systems
• Improve robot reliability and contribute toward achieving high uptime through software and hardware recovery flows
• Bridge hardware and software systems, taking ownership of cross-functional issues
• Build and refine control systems to improve robot speed, accuracy, and robustness in real-world environments
• Develop vision-based control systems for manipulation in warehouse settings
• Generate and iterate on motion plans using 3D landmarks and real-time sensor data
• Contribute to perception pipelines that inform robot decision-making during live operations
• Implement simulations that reflect real hardware behavior for rapid iteration
• Build teleoperation interfaces and feedback systems for human-robot interaction
• Support operator-facing tools, including a VR teleoperation application (Android)
• Travel up to once per month for on-site customer installation and support

Qualifications:

✅ You likely fit if you:

• You have at least 2 years of professional experience building and maintaining robots
• You have hands-on experience with vision-based control systems and motion planning using 3D landmarks
• You are a software generalist with experience across multiple systems
• You have experience shipping and maintaining production-quality software
• You have experience working in startup or high-velocity environments
• You are comfortable working across software and hardware systems
• ➕ Bonus:
• Experience in mechanical or electrical engineering, including designing or manufacturing robotics components (e.g., custom PCBs, engineered parts)

❌ This role is not for you if:

• You are looking for a research-focused or purely theoretical role
• You prefer narrowly scoped roles without cross-functional ownership
• You prefer to manage rather than build hands-on systems
• You are not interested in working in-person

What they offer:

• Opportunity to work on robots deployed in real-world production environments
• Ownership across the full robotics stack, from control systems to deployment
• Direct collaboration with an experienced founding team
• Exposure to real-world feedback loops between software, hardware, and operations
• Work on systems actively generating production data and improving over time