Senior/Staff Software Engineer, Robotic Manufacturing Systems
Why This Role Matters Right Now
We are building the hardened execution layer for a new kind of fab. The team already has deep expertise in data engineering and algorithms. We need a hands-on software engineer with deep architectural experience and systems thinking to work directly with these experts and turn that expertise into simple, dependable software.
The primary responsibility is managing software complexity: defining clear responsibilities and interfaces, limiting coupling, and making the system easier to understand, test, operate, and change. Fluency in data and optimization, and a willingness to work with hardware support that responsibility.
What You’ll Do:
Design and build the distributed software systems that coordinate state, timing, and behavior across manufacturing hardware; write, test, and debug sensors, actuators, and process controllers under real-time and reliability constraints.
Design workflows that bridge manual and automated process steps, and coordinate handoffs between production and process development.
Evolve the existing system in place — including but not limited to API development to govern machine behavior across our fleet— as the architecture converges, without waiting for a clean-slate rewrite to start delivering value.
Instrument systems so machine and process data is legible — not just to humans via logs, but structured for downstream AI/ML consumption.
Investigate and resolve issues that span software, firmware, and physical systems.
Establish and model software engineering practices — testing, code review, CI/CD, documentation — appropriate for a team that's outgrown its current ones.
Contribute to system reliability through structured observability, fault handling, and graceful degradation.
Collaborate closely with mechanical, electrical, and process engineers to translate physical constraints into resilient software behavior.
Partner with engineering leadership to help converge competing architectural visions into one well-reasoned direction, rather than waiting for it to be handed down.
What You’ll Need:
5+ years building production software; productive in any of the following languages: Python and (Golang or C++)
Demonstrated meaningful ownership of architectural decisions in a complex production system
Demonstrate first-principles thinking with sound instincts for strategic tradeoffs.
Closed-loop experience: Operated or evolved the system long enough to observe the consequences of those decisions, explain what worked and failed, and improve the architecture.
Production ownership: Experience testing, operating, and safely migrating systems where correctness matters.
Collaboration: Translate expert knowledge and user needs into software requirements and acceptance criteria.
Domain fluency: Discuss data models, transactions, and durable history with data engineers; objectives, constraints, inputs, and outputs with optimization experts.
Experience with Hardware: Demonstrated interaction with equipment. Have had to understand and troubleshoot physical workflows.
Has willingness to work directly with fab equipment
Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Electrical Engineering, Robotics, or related field, or equivalent experience.
The compensation for this position also includes equity and benefits.
Salary Range
$180,000—$230,000 USD