Top Robotics Engineer Jobs in San Francisco Bay Area, CA

Build and maintain robotics software for simulation and real robotic arm hardware across motion planning, control, perception, and manipulation. Prototype ideas, harden successful systems for deployment, and develop tests and metrics to measure robot performance and prevent regressions. The role requires ownership, cross-functional collaboration, and practical expertise in robotics software development.

Build and operate a robotic test fleet for Neuralink’s surgical robots. Develop component test rigs, fixtures, sensing, logging, and automated verification and validation workflows. Diagnose failures across mechanics, electronics, firmware, and software; collaborate with simulation and HIL engineers; and convert failures into repeatable regression tests. The role requires hands-on robotics experience, hardware troubleshooting, test automation, instrumentation, and disciplined evidence-based release judgment.

Lead robotics innovation projects from architecture and implementation through integration and production rollout. Develop Physical AI systems using ROS2, VLA models, simulation, synthetic data, world models, and real-time control. Manage interdisciplinary teams, conduct technology benchmarks, establish demos and test environments, coordinate with clients and partners, and contribute to robotics strategy, technology roadmaps, partner development, and internal enablement.

Lead development of perception, mapping, sensor fusion, and calibration systems. Improve SLAM for GPS-degraded environments, automate LiDAR and imagery alignment across sessions, eliminate field extrinsic measurements, and improve data quality and scalability for large-scale mapping and analytics delivery.

Design and develop control systems for production robots, translating high-level motion commands into precise whole-body behavior. Implement hierarchical feedback loops, motor control software, compliant and force-sensitive controllers, and QP-based whole-body control. Develop embedded, real-time software integrated with custom hardware and communication interfaces. Build pipelines for sensing, encoder calibration, filtering, synchronization, and system characterization while ensuring robotic safety, timing, reliability, and robustness.

Develop and maintain real-time actuator and motor-control firmware for robotic systems from prototype through production. Design hierarchical feedback-control systems, architect reliable embedded software, validate motor controllers and sensors, and collaborate with electrical and mechanical engineers on custom hardware. Build calibration and sensing pipelines for encoders, current, voltage, filtering, synchronization, and system characterization while implementing safety mechanisms and meeting production timing and robustness requirements.

Design and develop the behavioral and autonomy architecture for real-world robots. Build systems that translate goals and robot state into coordinated actions, integrate perception, controls, navigation, and learned methods, and ensure safety through preconditions, fallbacks, timeouts, and recovery. Diagnose cross-stack issues involving latency, failures, and resource contention. Establish robust interfaces, review system-wide designs, and provide technical leadership across robotics teams.

Build and deploy vertically integrated robotic systems across hardware and software. Responsibilities include integrating sensors, troubleshooting cross-stack issues, bringing new robots from first power-on through deployment, configuring customer-specific workflows, validating robots at customer sites, and creating runbooks and tooling. The role requires hands-on experience with robotic or electromechanical systems, hardware and software debugging, and deployment or integration at customer locations.

Design and ship end-to-end teleoperation systems for bimanual home robots. Build VR and 3D operator interfaces, integrate headsets and controllers, develop motion-retargeting and optimization-based control, reduce perceived network latency, and create shared-autonomy capabilities. Specify ergonomic operator stations and collaborate across mechanical, robotics, and software teams. The role combines HCI, sensing, ergonomics, robotics, systems profiling, and empirical testing to deliver reliable tools used by operators in real-world settings.

Build and own the robotics simulation platform, including environments, robot models, actuator and contact modeling, GPU-parallel training infrastructure, system identification, domain randomization, regression testing, and CAD-to-simulation asset pipelines. The role focuses on improving simulation fidelity, performance, reproducibility, and sim-to-real transfer for controls, planning, SLAM, and manipulation systems.

As a Software Engineer in Robotics, you'll develop production software for Vision-Language-Action models, including data integration, benchmarking, and dataset management, collaborating with clients to enhance robot learning systems.

Lead embedded firmware development for robotic hardware, including PCB bring-up, low-level drivers, diagnostics, testing, monitoring, and hardware integration. Troubleshoot component and interface issues, develop automated validation tools, manage test benches, and provide technical mentorship for hardware-firmware root-cause analysis.

Own software releases and integration for robotic systems, coordinating release scope, readiness criteria, testing, deployment, and fleet monitoring. Responsibilities include assembling reproducible releases, maintaining regression and endurance test plans, debugging failures through logs and code, shipping updates to internal and customer robots, managing hotfixes, and improving test coverage. The role partners with engineering, product, infrastructure, quality assurance, operations, and support teams.

Design, build, and maintain robotics software for simulation and real robotic hardware. Work across motion planning, control, perception, and manipulation; rapidly prototype ideas and harden successful systems for reliable deployment. Develop tests, metrics, and monitoring to measure robot performance, detect regressions, and reduce simulation-to-reality gaps. Collaborate with a senior team while independently owning problems from discovery through implementation.

Build and integrate robotic vehicle and aircraft platforms, including mechanical enclosures, mounts, cable harnesses, power systems, drive-by-wire, actuators, motors, and sensors. Design components in parametric CAD, fabricate prototypes, manage vendors, document builds, and bring up and verify systems. Support field testing, client demonstrations, procurement, maintenance, and on-site repairs in demanding outdoor environments.

Build end-to-end sensor data pipelines that ingest multi-sensor captures (video, depth, inertial, audio), perform segmentation, pre-labeling, automated QC, privacy redaction, encoding and packaging, and deliver validated, versioned datasets at petabyte scale for frontier AI labs.

Lead the end-to-end architecture and development of robotic systems for large-scale solar construction. Design and iterate on hardware and software, establish engineering, testing, validation, and documentation standards, close technical capability gaps, mentor the robotics team, and coordinate with hardware, software, manufacturing, and deployment leaders. The role is hands-on and based in San Francisco with regular travel to West Texas.

Lead the architecture, prototyping, integration, validation, and debugging of electromechanical systems for a robotic hand exoskeleton. Own actuator and sensor-integrated subsystems from concept through clinical-study readiness, define validation strategies, resolve multidisciplinary hardware and controls issues, and guide reliability, manufacturability, and production transition efforts. Mentor engineers, establish engineering processes, support vendor and component decisions, and develop fixtures, harnesses, and integration tooling.

Develop robotics software for laboratory environments, including motion planning, trajectory optimization, perception, and deployment on physical robotic hardware. Integrate and debug systems in simulation and on robots, use computer vision to interact with laboratory equipment, collaborate with scientists, and improve platform robustness, simplicity, and scalability.

Develop production control and localization systems for heavy autonomous vehicles. Design and tune MPC and PID algorithms, build GPS/RTK and IMU-based localization and state-estimation pipelines, analyze field-test logs, and integrate controls with perception, planning, and hardware. The role requires onsite work in San Francisco and up to 15% travel to customer deployment and testing sites.

Design, implement, and maintain production robotics software across the autonomy stack including ROS-based control, sensor integration, motion planning, and embedded C++ systems. Work hands-on with hardware to debug, calibrate, and optimize robots for real-world construction environments and build production monitoring and diagnostics infrastructure.

Lead system-level architecture and integration across mechanical, electrical, software, perception, and safety for an autonomous construction robot. Establish systems engineering practices, write requirements and ICDs, run trade studies, perform hazard analyses, translate field feedback into design changes, lead reviews and root-cause investigations, and mentor engineers while aligning technical risk with business priorities.

Design and develop mechanical components and assemblies for autonomous production robots, including grippers, manipulators, end-effectors, and mounts. Lead designs from concept through production, develop rapid prototypes, integrate components into larger hardware systems, and ensure performance, reliability, and manufacturability. Provide technical leadership and collaborate with hardware engineering and operations teams in an onsite, fast-paced environment.

Designs, develops, tests, and maintains robotics middleware and application frameworks in modern C++ on embedded Linux. Owns platform components through deployment and fleet operation, improves reliability and performance, diagnoses complex concurrency and systems issues, and translates safety requirements into software behavior and verification. Collaborates across autonomy, systems, hardware, and software teams while leading technical reviews and mentoring engineers.

Develop and ship autonomy software for outdoor, production robots across perception, localization, state estimation, motion planning, and controls. Build fleet coordination, simulation and CI, logging/telemetry pipelines, and operator tools. Validate on real hardware, support field deployments, and ensure software degrades gracefully at remote sites.