Lead Systems Integration / Robotics Engineer

Overlay•Oakland, CA

9h•$190,000 - $260,000•Onsite

About The Position

Overlay is building the world’s first intelligent makeup robot, reimagining beauty application through robotics, perception, and design. As a venture-backed, pre-launch startup, we’re defining a new category of personal robotics at the intersection of self-expression and engineering. Our system operates directly on the human face, requiring an unprecedented level of precision, safety, and real-world robustness. We’re a small, highly technical team working in person in Oakland—building something that does not yet exist, and making it real. This role is unique as it is not a narrow robotics role, nor a pure software role. The engineer will own how the full robot comes together across motion, perception, sensing, calibration, safety logic, hardware interfaces, and real-world validation. Overlay is moving from prototype toward a manufacturable MVP, meaning the challenge is to make the complete robot work repeatedly, safely, and predictably as a product. The engineer will be responsible for turning disconnected engineering progress into an integrated robot that can be built, tested, debugged, validated, and trusted.

Requirements

5+ years of experience in robotics, systems integration, controls, automation, or complex electromechanical systems.
Hands-on experience bringing up physical robots or hardware systems in the real world.
Strong understanding of motion control, calibration, sensors, actuators, real-time behavior, and system validation.
Experience integrating perception, motion, hardware, and safety-critical behavior.
Comfort debugging across hardware and software boundaries.
Strong coding ability in Python, C++, or similar languages.
Experience with ROS2 or similar robotics frameworks.
Strong engineering judgment — able to make practical tradeoffs under constraints.
Experience defining test plans, acceptance criteria, validation workflows, or release gates.
Ability to drive alignment across internal engineers, external partners, and manufacturing stakeholders.
Clear communicator who can turn messy technical ambiguity into structured execution.
Energized by working in person with a small, fast-moving team

Nice To Haves

Experience with robot calibration, gantry systems, CNC, 3D printers, lab automation, industrial automation, or precision motion systems.
Experience working with contract manufacturers, factory bring-up, or pilot builds.
Background in safety systems, interlocks, fault detection, or human-facing robotics.
Experience shipping robotics or complex hardware products to real users.
Experience building internal tools for logging, calibration, validation, or robot bring-up.
Strong ability to debug messy real-world systems with incomplete information.

Responsibilities

Own full-system integration and bring-up of Overlay’s robotic platform.
Integrate motion, perception, sensing, calibration, safety logic, and hardware systems into a reliable MVP robot.
Drive robot-level execution and ensure the system works as a complete product.
Build and improve perception-to-action flows that enable precise, responsive, and safe robot behavior.
Develop calibration and bring-up workflows for accuracy, repeatability, and product readiness.
Lead cross-team debugging across robotics, mechanical, software, perception, hardware, and manufacturing.
Define system-level validation plans, acceptance criteria, test procedures, and release gates.
Work closely with external partners to support build readiness, manufacturing feedback, and issue closure.
Partner with the perception lead on sensing feedback, safety integration, and real-time execution.
Partner with mechanical and hardware engineers on subsystem integration, robustness, serviceability, and robot-level validation.
Architect and validate safety layers, fault detection, interlocks, and failure-response behavior for human-facing operation.
Translate ambiguous system failures into clear reproduction steps, owners, root causes, fixes, and closure criteria.
Create practical tools, logs, test scripts, and procedures that make robot bring-up and debugging faster.
Contribute to core robotics architecture and product-level engineering decisions.
Embody our values of ownership, velocity, and craft.