Founding Software Engineer

Founding Software Engineer – Robotics Integration Platform

Location: Santa Monica, CA — hybrid schedule

Compensation: $160,000–$180,000+ base salary, depending on experience

Equity: Meaningful founding-stage equity

Company Stage: Early-stage, well-funded stealth robotics startup

The Opportunity

Robots can perform increasingly complex tasks, but connecting robots from different manufacturers remains expensive, slow and highly customized.

This company is building a vendor-neutral software platform that allows robots, OEM fleet managers, sensors and facility systems to communicate and operate through one shared integration and orchestration layer.

As a Founding Software Engineer, you will own a critical technical foundation of the product: the software layer that connects different robotic systems to the broader platform. This is a hands-on role for someone who wants to build from zero, work directly with physical robots and shape the architecture of an early-stage company.

What You’ll Work On

• Design and build the core robot integration layer.
• Create reusable interfaces across different robot manufacturers, APIs, SDKs and protocols.
• Develop OEM-specific adapters without allowing the platform to become a collection of one-off drivers.
• Normalize robot capabilities, commands, mission states, health data, failures and operator interventions.
• Integrate sensors, payloads and facility systems with physical robots.
• Support quadrupeds, mobile robots, AMRs, manipulators and other autonomous systems.
• Build simulation, testing and validation workflows before physical deployment.
• Debug problems across software, networking, sensors and hardware.
• Collaborate directly with founders, customers, OEMs and integration partners.
• Help define the technical architecture, engineering practices and future team.
  
  

What We’re Looking For

• Approximately five or more years of professional robotics or autonomous-systems software experience.
• Professional experience using ROS or ROS2; strong ROS1 experience is transferable.
• Experience developing and deploying software on physical robotic systems.
• Hands-on experience integrating robot hardware, sensors, payloads, APIs or SDKs.
• Strong software engineering ability in languages such as C++, Python or similar.
• Experience designing reusable software abstractions rather than exclusively building customer-specific integrations.
• Ability to troubleshoot across software and hardware boundaries.
• Experience taking systems from development through testing and real-world deployment.
• Comfort working in an early-stage environment with changing priorities and limited structure.
• Strong ownership, technical judgment and ability to make practical tradeoffs.
  
  

AI-Native Engineering

The team uses AI coding tools as a core part of its engineering workflow. Candidates should be able to:

• Use AI tools to accelerate design, development, testing and debugging.
• Understand and critically review AI-generated code.
• Identify where AI is useful and where deeper engineering judgment is required.
• Validate generated code before deploying it to physical systems.
• Clearly explain their approach to testing, safety and reliability.
  
  

Especially Valuable Experience

• Integrating robots from multiple manufacturers.
• Multi-robot or cross-fleet orchestration.
• Robot capability models and common control interfaces.
• OEM fleet managers and robot operations platforms.
• DDS and distributed robotic systems.
• NVIDIA Isaac Sim, Isaac ROS, Omniverse or Gazebo.
• AMRs, quadrupeds, drones, industrial robots or mobile manipulators.
• Mission assignment, status tracking, exception handling and audit logging.
• Early-stage startup, founding-engineer or zero-to-one product experience.
• Customer deployments in industrial or brownfield environments.
  
  

What Success Looks Like

• New robot manufacturers can be added through adapters without changing the orchestration or user-facing layer.
• Different robots can receive consistent high-level commands through a shared platform interface.
• Robot capabilities, states, failures and interventions are represented consistently.
• Early customer integrations become reusable platform capabilities rather than one-off engineering projects.
• The system remains reliable when hardware fails, communications are interrupted or operators must intervene.
  
  

Why Join

• Join as one of the earliest engineers and influence the product from the foundation upward.
• Work directly with real robots rather than only simulated or theoretical systems.
• Define the architecture of a platform addressing one of robotics’ largest interoperability problems.
• Collaborate with an experienced founding team with backgrounds from leading technology companies.
• Join a well-funded company with more than two years of runway.
• Receive meaningful equity and substantial ownership over the technical direction.
• Work in an environment where strong individual interests can shape future areas of ownership.
  
  

Work Authorization

• Candidates must have valid authorization to work in the United States.
• Qualifying H-1B transfers may be considered when sufficient time remains on the existing status.
• The company cannot support new H-1B lottery applications.
• Any sponsorship requirements should be disclosed at the beginning of the process.
  
  

Interview Process

• Initial technical conversation with company leadership.
• Founder conversation focused on motivation, ownership and startup alignment.
• Technical design and implementation assessment.
• Interactive technical deep dive.
• Final onsite meeting.