Forward Deployed Robotics Engineer

Our team consists of pioneers in robotics and machine learning. We are now hiring to scale our R&D and commercialization efforts. We are looking for hands-on individuals who are excited to help shape the future of robotics.

Role Overview

As a Forward Deployed Robotics Engineer, you will serve as the primary on-site technical expert for our robotic manipulation systems. You will be instrumental in supporting robot deployments and company’s product demos globally. When issues arise, you will be the first responder: analyzing field tickets, reproducing issues, gathering diagnostic data, and driving root-cause resolution to ensure maximum fleet uptime. This role requires a strong emphasis on process improvement and exceptional communication skills, as you will eventually operate independently on client sites.

Responsibilities

• Deployment & Bring-Up: Build, deploy, configure, and troubleshoot robotic arms, grippers and camera systems on-site. Perform spatial/hand-eye calibrations and camera alignment during system setup.

• Fleet Issue Triage: Manage incoming fleet ticket queues, prioritize based on operational impact, and triage failures across hardware, software, and operational layers.

• On-Site Diagnostics & Failure Analysis: Execute physical inspections, run diagnostic tests at robot stations, and perform Root Cause Analysis (RCA) to isolate and reproduce field failures.

• Telemetry & Data Analysis: Analyze telemetry, sensor streams, and system logs to form and validate diagnostic hypotheses.

• Cross-Team Feedback Loop: Partner with core hardware and software R&D teams to escalate complex issues. Directly advise software engineering on new tooling, scripts, and diagnostic features needed to streamline field bring-up.

• Process Improvement: Develop standard diagnostic procedures, troubleshooting flowcharts, and operational guides. Surface recurring fleet issues to engineering to drive design improvements.

• Documentation: Develop clear deployment documentation and procedures to support deployments by third party integrators. Maintain clear, traceable logs for all diagnostic events, field modifications, and escalation workflows.

• Field Operations: Travel 50%+ to lead on-site deployments, customer demonstrations, and operational support.

Minimum Qualifications

• B.S. in Robotics, Mechatronics, Systems Engineering, Electrical Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, or equivalent practical experience.

• 2+ years of hands-on experience debugging, troubleshooting, and performing root-cause analysis on complex systems with integrated hardware and software components in deployment.

• Practical experience parsing log files and writing basic diagnostic scripts in Python.

• Solid understanding of the interactions between mechanical, electrical, firmware, and software layers in robotic systems.

• Excellent written and verbal communication skills, with the demonstrated ability to articulate technical issues clearly during solo customer engagements and shift handoffs.

Preferred Qualifications

• M.S. in Robotics, Mechatronics, Systems Engineering, or a related technical field.

• Learning-Based Policy Field Experience: Experience deploying learning-based control models (e.g., imitation learning, RL, or end-to-end vision-to-action policies) on physical manipulators in unstructured environments.

• Deployment Tooling & Automation: Proven track record of writing internal Python tools, CLI scripts, or automated calibration routines that reduce deployment and bring-up cycles.

• Solo Client Site Leadership: Experience acting as the sole technical lead on customer sites or high-stakes field demos, managing on-site communication, de-escalation, and technical execution independently.

• Robot Arm & Bus Architecture: Hands-on experience integrating and configuring 6+ DoF industrial or cobot arms (e.g., Universal Robots, Franka, KUKA, FANUC) with industrial communications (EtherCAT, CANbus, Modbus) and safety controllers.

• Edge Compute & Containerization: Experience managing edge devices, Linux network interfaces, and containerized robotics software stacks (Docker, ROS/ROS2, systemd).

• Field Telemetry Workflows: Familiarity with modern robotics diagnostic tools (e.g., Foxglove Studio, ROS bags) to capture edge failure modes and feed data back into core ML pipelines.

• Process Architecture & FMEA: Experience building field operational processes from scratch, including writing SOPs, conducting FMEA, and structuring field support workflows.