Lead Robotics Engineer

Caterpillar Inc.•Irving, TX

2d•$128,470 - $208,770•Onsite

About The Position

We build the autonomy stack that lets large off-road machines operate themselves on real customer sites — from perception through motion to control, with modern learning-based methods and a classical robotics foundations. We are hiring high-quality robotics generalists: engineers who can work confidently across the full stack and go deep in at least one domain. You will own real components end-to-end — from idea and prototype through to production on hardware.

Requirements

Typically, 8+ years of related engineering experience
Strong robotics generalist — comfortable moving across the autonomy stack rather than staying in one narrow lane.
Expertise in at least one of: AI, motion planning, perception, controls, or SLAM.
C++ and Python, production-quality.
ROS (or similar) in real robotics systems.
Full-lifecycle product experience — ideally has taken robotics products from idea to production, not just research or prototypes.
Pragmatic, first-principles engineer who owns components end-to-end and collaborates across a fast-moving delivery team.
Excited to get out on site and see their own code operate on iron — real machines in the real world, not just in the lab.
Real-world / field robotics or autonomous vehicles (on- or off-road).
Learning-based control or perception, or foundation / VLA-style models.
Sim and on-vehicle deployment.
MLOps / training-infrastructure depth for the ML-leaning profile.

Responsibilities

Participating in the processes of test review and analysis, test witnessing and certification of robotics software.
Design, build, and ship autonomy components across perception, planning, control, and learning.
Take work from prototype to production on real hardware.
Bring depth in your specialty while contributing broadly across the stack.
Work in small, outcome-owning pods staffed from our capability benches.