Top Robotics Engineer Jobs in San Francisco Bay Area, CA

Leads the design, development, integration, validation, and production deployment of robotics and autonomous machine technologies. Responsibilities span perception, sensor fusion, localization, mapping, planning, controls, machine learning, simulation, and machine integration. The role provides technical direction, defines architectures, leads design reviews, mentors engineers, troubleshoots real machines, and establishes testing and validation practices for safe, high-reliability autonomous systems.

Own end-to-end customer deployments of a Physical AI robotics platform. Translate scientific workflows into technical requirements, integrate robots, instruments, and software, and build, test, debug, and deploy production workflows. Work directly with customers and forward-deployed scientists during site bring-up and validation, diagnose cross-system failures, extend integrations, and generalize deployment learnings into reusable platform capabilities. The role is fully in-person in San Francisco and requires approximately 30% travel.

Lead the architecture and hands-on development of manipulation systems for physical insectoid robots. Design contact-rich behaviors, planning, learned-policy integration, force control, monitoring, recovery, and real-time execution in C++ and Python. Establish experiments, metrics, regression tests, and failure-analysis processes that improve repeated physical-task performance. Mentor engineers, lead cross-stack reviews, and make technical decisions across sensing, control, actuation, interfaces, and mechanical constraints.

Build software and robotics for a highly automated biology lab. Responsibilities include integrating laboratory instruments and robotic systems, developing experiment orchestration and scheduling, enabling monitoring and error recovery, capturing complete experimental data, optimizing workflows for throughput and reproducibility, and transferring automated assays across partner laboratories. The role bridges software engineering, robotics, hardware integration, and biology while requiring hands-on troubleshooting and close collaboration with scientists and laboratory operators.

Lead architecture and hands-on development of safety-critical firmware for next-generation robotic hardware. Responsibilities include hardware bring-up, real-time execution, peripheral control, power management, communications, diagnostics, fault handling, safety mechanisms, testing, validation, release processes, root-cause analysis, and production readiness. The role also mentors engineers and partners across hardware, software, and AI research while balancing reliability, performance, power, schedule, and safety.

Own mechanical design for robotic and electromechanical subsystems from concept through build. Design motion systems, cable routing, and manufacturable plastic, machined, and sheet-metal components. Perform FEA and tolerance analysis, create test fixtures, run validation testing, and produce fabrication-ready drawings. Collaborate with firmware, electrical, robotics, and vendor teams in a hands-on Oakland startup environment.

Own the end-to-end robotics software stack, including controls, hardware integration, teleoperation, data collection, testing, deployment, and learned-policy integration. Build data pipelines and infrastructure for training and inference, evaluate world models on real robots, and collaborate with customers deploying robotic systems. This founding role requires broad ownership across robotics, machine learning, software, hardware, and production systems.

Design and execute rigorous hardware and software tests for robotic systems. Build custom test benches, fixtures, and instrumentation; analyze data for trends, anomalies, and root causes; develop validation plans; perform verification, compliance, reliability, environmental, and qualification testing; and author actionable reports. Collaborate across engineering, product, manufacturing, and leadership teams to guide design iterations, mitigate risks, and improve robotic hardware performance.

Build, integrate, operate, and maintain humanoids, robotic arms, and custom platforms. Debug mechanical, electrical, networking, embedded, and software issues; develop robot drivers, interfaces, diagnostics, and distributed robotics software; perform calibration and testing; maintain data collection and evaluation systems; and deploy learned policies on physical robots. The role requires cross-stack troubleshooting, reliability improvements, and collaboration with machine learning researchers in an on-site startup environment.

Build and scale high-volume robotics data infrastructure, including data processing, transformation, storage, validation, and delivery pipelines. Develop reliable distributed systems on AWS or GCP, handle large binary and multimodal datasets, and collaborate with customer engineering teams on customized solutions. The role requires strong backend engineering, production data pipeline ownership, cloud experience, and effective technical communication.

Develop and test software for warehouse robots, including behaviors, motion control, state estimation, hardware abstractions, and recovery logic. Integrate sensors, actuators, motors, PLCs, and internal services using robotics communication protocols. Build simulations and automated CI tests, debug real robots using telemetry and logs, and own components of the C++ and Python software stack while collaborating across mechanical, electrical, and software teams.

Own system-level architecture, integration, testing, and reliability for robotic platforms spanning mechanical, electrical, embedded, and machine learning systems. Define specifications, interfaces, power budgets, sensor suites, communication architectures, and qualification pipelines. Lead hardware bring-up, functional testing, diagnostics, FMEA, and root-cause investigations. Collaborate with ML, mechanical design, and manufacturing teams to convert software goals into hardware requirements and validate robots for reliable field deployment.

Designs and builds robotic hardware and controls for automated biomanufacturing equipment. Responsibilities include mechanical CAD, prototype fabrication, assembly, testing, commercial component evaluation, precision alignment, thermal and fluid systems, robotic gripping and EOAT development, motion controls, and design documentation for manufacturing transfer. The role requires hands-on work in manufacturing and laboratory environments, participation in design reviews, and technical support through product development.

Build and own software connecting perception, planning, and control on real robot hardware. Develop tests, diagnostics, and logging tools to reproduce intermittent failures. Debug sensor and runtime issues with engineers deploying robotic workcells, and validate fixes directly on hardware. The role requires strong Python or C++ fundamentals, experience shipping software on robotic or hardware systems, and comfort debugging across software-hardware interfaces.

Build software connecting perception, planning, and control on real robot hardware. Develop tests, diagnostic tools, and logging systems to reproduce intermittent failures. Debug sensor and runtime issues while bringing robotic workcells into operation. The role requires strong Python or C++ fundamentals and comfort working across software and hardware interfaces. Robotics projects involving ROS/ROS 2, computer vision, or robot motion are useful but not required.

Develop software and machine learning methods for dexterous robotic manipulation. Responsibilities include designing experiments, building data collection and evaluation workflows, integrating learned models into robot software, testing and debugging on physical robots, improving reliability, documenting results, and collaborating with robotics, software, and hardware engineers.

Prepare, configure, test, deploy, and debug robot software in real-world environments. Investigate navigation, perception, sensor integration, and system failures; work with users and deployment partners to reproduce issues; deliver software fixes, tests, documentation, diagnostics, and deployment tooling. Collaborate across mechanical, electrical, and machine learning teams while supporting international field deployments and improving system reliability.

Lead the design and implementation of robotics software spanning motion planning, real-time control, perception, optimization, tooling, embedded systems, cloud infrastructure, and robot operations. Own complex software architecture, influence technical direction, mentor engineers, lead technical projects, and establish engineering best practices across the robotics stack. Collaborate across hardware, software, and deployment teams to scale production robotics systems.

Design, fabricate, assemble, and integrate warehouse robots, including custom mechanical parts, arms, grippers, sensors, wiring, and power systems. Integrate hardware with ROS 2, vendor SDKs, firmware, and low-level interfaces. Develop and tune manipulation controls, calibrate systems, test robots, document builds, and support customer-site deployments. The role requires hands-on physical robot development in warehouse environments and collaboration with software teams.

Design and build mechanical hardware for automated systems, from concept through prototyping, testing, production, and field deployment. Responsibilities include designing gripping tools and integrated machine systems, building test rigs, conducting hands-on testing, managing supplier production transitions, and installing hardware in live facilities.

Lead hardware and software integration for complex electromechanical equipment, including system bring-up, testing, sensor and actuator integration, and hardware-to-software handoff. Build an integration and test function, refine system interfaces, and support equipment during occasional field deployments. The role requires robotics engineering expertise, experience with industrial robot arms, programming ability, and substantial experience in fast-moving organizations.

Integrate and validate autonomous haulage systems on production vehicles. Lead vehicle platform bring-ups, sensor integration, calibration, diagnostics, testing, performance tuning, and release readiness across multiple OEM platforms. Collaborate with planning, controls, operations, and safety teams to deliver reliable autonomy in mining environments. The role requires hands-on robotics systems engineering, strong Python and C++ skills, Linux experience, and up to 15% travel to customer sites.

Develop robotics software for localization, state estimation, motion planning, trajectory analysis, sensor integration, autonomy, and system architecture. Implement and validate algorithms on physical robots using C++ and Python, integrate sensors, manage calibration and synchronization, define performance metrics, and optimize reliable operation under real-world hardware and environmental constraints.

Own the architecture and integration of onboard sensing, compute, communications, power, data interfaces, timing, calibration, and software pathways for autonomous insectoid robots. Select and integrate sensors, embedded boards, compute modules, harnesses, and middleware; define interface contracts; characterize timing and latency; and diagnose hardware-software faults involving communications, power, thermal behavior, calibration, and mechanical alignment. Write C++ or Python integration code and maintain compatibility and calibration records.

Lead integration of autonomous hardware and software onto production work vehicles, from early prototypes through dependable field deployment. Responsibilities include vehicle platform bring-up, device setup, calibration, performance tuning, diagnostics, validation criteria, release gates, and collaboration with engineering, field operations, and safety teams. The role supports industrial-site deployments and production readiness across multiple countries.