Principal Robotics Engineer, Autonomous Systems

Blue River Technology

2d•$174,000 - $305,000•Remote

About The Position

We’re Blue River, a team of innovators driven to create intelligent machinery that solves monumental problems for our customers. We empower our customers - farmers, construction crews, and foresters to implement safer and more sustainable solutions, driving increased profitability with less reliance on scarce labor. We believe that focusing on the small stuff, pixel-by-pixel and task-by-task, leads to big gains. Blue River Technology aligns with John Deere’s vision to “innovate on behalf of humanity” by quickly identifying and solving high-value, high-uncertainty challenges in AI, machine learning, computer vision, and robotics. BRT acts as a research and development flywheel, building not only new products but also new platforms that reliably create value for both Deere and its customers. From fully autonomous machines to highly precise farming equipment, BRT and Deere are partnering to deliver technical breakthroughs across industries such as agriculture and construction. Our people are at the heart of what we do. Through cross-disciplinary collaboration, this mission-driven team is eager to define the new frontier of robotics. We are always asking hard questions, rapidly iterating, and getting our boots in the field to figure it out. We won’t give up until we’ve made a tangible and positive impact on the planet! Blue River Technology is based in Santa Clara, CA. Construction is facing a structural labor shortage that isn't going away. An aging workforce, declining trade enrollment, and growing infrastructure demand mean the industry needs autonomy, not as a novelty, but as a necessity. The market opportunity is massive, and the technology gap is real. We're building machines that navigate, perceive, and operate in unstructured heavy-construction environments - dirt, dust, steep grades, and dynamic site conditions that challenge the assumptions baked into most autonomy stacks. The technical problems are real and unsolved: robust perception across sensor modalities in environments that degrade each one, planning and controls for heavy equipment with dynamics unlike those of a passenger car, and safeguarding systems where the consequences of getting it wrong are severe. Construction autonomy also has structural advantages over public-road self-driving. Sites are partially or fully closed, the set of actors is known and constrained, and there is real opportunity to define and enforce operational design domain restrictions. This means a shorter path from a capable prototype to a deployed product - the kind of environment where strong engineering decisions translate into shipped systems, not endless corner-case tails. We are seeking a Principal Robotics Engineer to serve as a senior technical authority on the robotics stack for Blue River's autonomous construction program. That means owning the architecture across localization, planning, controls, and safeguarding, and being accountable for the technical bets that determine whether the system works in the field, not just in simulation. You will also work across Blue River's autonomy programs to identify the right shared approaches, improve code reuse, and increase engineering velocity company-wide. We have multiple programs building autonomous systems for different Deere markets, and there is significant opportunity to get the technical foundations right once rather than re-solving the same problems in parallel. This role carries a mandate to make that happen, not as a side project, but as a core part of the job. Foundational architecture decisions are being made now, and the person in this role will shape them. This is not a position where you inherit a mature system and optimize at the margins; it's one where your judgment about what to build, how to structure it, and where to invest defines what the program becomes.

Requirements

Architected and shipped autonomous systems. You've made the structural decisions on a robotics or AV program and lived with the consequences through production. You know what works, what doesn't, and why.
Deep, broad technical judgment. You can go deep in multiple areas across the technical stack, and broad across all of it. You understand how decisions in one domain constrain the others. You think in systems, not subsystems.
A track record of making the right technical decisions across team boundaries. You've shaped architecture and engineering practices beyond your immediate team, not by mandate, but because you did the work to understand the problem and build consensus around the right approach.
The ability to operate in ambiguity. You can take an ill-defined problem, structure it, make a call, and drive to a result, without waiting for someone to hand you a spec.
Strong software skills. You write and review production code in compiled languages. You have strong opinions about software architecture, testing, and code quality. You lead by example.
10+ years in robotics, autonomous vehicles, or related industries (or equivalent depth with fewer years and a graduate degree).

Nice To Haves

Experience with off-highway, construction, or agriculture autonomy - environments where the rules are different from on-road AV.
Deep familiarity with autonomous vehicle safety practices: hazard analysis, safe behavior design, runtime monitoring, and the engineering disciplines that make autonomous systems trustworthy in the real world.
Experience building and scaling robotics teams and codebases from early-stage to production.

Responsibilities

Define the engineering strategy and technical roadmap for the robotics stack for Blue River's autonomous construction program.
Make build-vs-reuse-vs-buy decisions on critical subsystems and drive them to execution.
Design safeguarding systems and safety architectures for heavy autonomous equipment, drawing on best practices from the AV and robotics safety community.
Work directly with mechatronics, platform, and field operations teams on system integration, bring-up, and field validation.
Mentor and elevate the engineers around you.