Founding Robotic Engineer - FTE
About The Position
The company is a seed-stage robotics startup (~4 people) building foundational infrastructure for lag-free teleoperation and large-scale real-world data capture for dexterous robotic manipulation. The team is focused on solving one of the most difficult challenges in robotics: enabling robots to learn complex manipulation tasks through high-fidelity human demonstrations , rather than relying on simulation-heavy or brittle approaches. The platform combines: Real-time teleoperation of robotic arms Scalable egocentric data capture from human operators Data infrastructure designed to support long-term robot learning and generalization A key differentiator is access to tens of thousands of manufacturing workers , enabling real-world data collection at a scale that is rarely available to early-stage robotics teams. With approximately 18 months of runway till the next investment round, the company is transitioning from core system development into production-grade pipelines that will underpin future autonomy and learning efforts. This role exists to bring on a hands-on, systems-oriented founding engineer who can help design, build, and harden the interfaces between humans, robots, and data - from teleoperation latency and reliability to real-world robustness. WHAT MAKES THIS ROLE DIFFERENT: True founding engineer role with material influence over technical direction Work on real robots, real humans, and real-world data , not simulation-only research Broad technical scope spanning robotics, systems engineering, networking, and ML-adjacent infrastructure High ownership, fast iteration, and direct collaboration with the founding team Opportunity to shape the technical foundation for long-term robot learning efforts CURRENT STAGE EXPECTATIONS: This is a seed-stage company, and candidates should be comfortable with early-stage realities: Ambiguity is expected; priorities will evolve as the team learns from deployments High autonomy with minimal process or bureaucracy Resource constraints require pragmatism and speed Regular hands-on debugging of physical systems in real-world environments For the right engineer, this environment offers outsized impact, learning, and ownership.
Requirements
- Strong hands-on experience with robotic systems, particularly manipulators or arms
- Proficiency in robotics software stacks (e.g., ROS / ROS2 or equivalent custom frameworks)
- Experience building or debugging real-time or low-latency systems
- Solid programming skills in Python and/or C++
- Comfort working directly with hardware, sensors, and physical systems
- Systems-thinking mindset: able to reason across software, hardware, and data flows
Nice To Haves
- Experience with teleoperation systems or human-in-the-loop robotics
- Background in robot learning, imitation learning, or data collection pipelines
- Familiarity with networking concepts affecting latency and synchronization
- Prior experience at an early-stage robotics or hardware startup
- Exposure to large-scale data infrastructure supporting ML workflows
Benefits
- Founding-level equity with meaningful upside
- Direct influence on core technology and company trajectory
- Close collaboration with a small, highly technical founding team
- Work on problems at the intersection of robotics, data, and human interaction
- Flexibility and speed that only an early-stage company can offer
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What This Job Offers
Job Type
Full-time
Career Level
Mid Level
Education Level
No Education Listed
