Principal Robotics Engineer

FieldAI • Irvine, CA

4d • $210,000 - $240,000 • Onsite

About The Position

FieldAI is seeking a Principal Robotics Engineer to set technical direction across our autonomy software stack and to take ownership of our hardest, highest-leverage engineering problems. As a Principal-level individual contributor, you will architect production-grade systems spanning perception, localization, planning, and control; define the interfaces and quality standards that let dozens of engineers move fast without breaking the fleet; and translate cutting-edge research into reliable, field-ready capabilities running on legged and wheeled robots worldwide. This is a technical leadership role: you will multiply the output of the entire autonomy organization through architecture, mentorship, and cross-team influence rather than through people management.

Requirements

• Master’s or PhD in Robotics, Computer Science, Electrical Engineering, or a related field—or equivalent industry experience.
• 10+ years of experience building production robotics or autonomy software, with a track record of Principal- or Staff-level technical impact.
• Deep expertise in modern C++ and Python, with strong command of ROS/ROS2, Linux, and Git.
• Demonstrated experience architecting large-scale autonomy systems across two or more of: perception, SLAM/localization, planning, and control.
• Strong foundation in real-time systems, concurrency, and performance optimization.
• Proven ability to lead complex technical efforts across multiple teams and to influence direction without formal management authority.
• Excellent written and verbal communication; able to make sound architectural trade-offs and articulate them to engineers and stakeholders alike.

Nice To Haves

• PhD with a strong publication record in robotics, perception, or machine learning.
• Hands-on experience with both legged and wheeled robot platforms.
• Experience with learning-based methods for navigation, traversability, or planning, including vision foundation models or reinforcement learning.
• Experience with simulation environments such as Isaac Sim, Gazebo, or MuJoCo.
• Track record of deploying and maintaining robot fleets in harsh or unstructured real-world environments.
• Familiarity with fleet observability and performance tooling (e.g., Prometheus, Grafana).

Responsibilities

• Own the end-to-end architecture of the autonomy stack. Make and document the high-stakes design decisions—module boundaries, data flow, real-time constraints—that determine whether the system scales gracefully or accrues crippling technical debt.
• Drive deep technical work across perception, localization and mapping, planning, and control. Identify the algorithmic and systems bottlenecks limiting reliability and performance, and personally lead the most difficult of them to resolution.
• Define and enforce stable API contracts between autonomy components and the broader software platform. Raise the bar on production software quality through testing, code review, profiling, and architectural discipline.
• Align engineers across multiple teams on shared technical direction without formal authority. Mentor senior and staff engineers, review designs, and grow the technical depth of the organization.
• Partner with research collaborators and internal scientists to mature promising methods—including learning-based traversability, foundation models, and learned planning—from prototypes into robust, deployed capabilities.
• Lead root-cause analysis of complex, fleet-wide reliability and performance issues. Establish the observability, diagnostics, and engineering practices that keep robots operating reliably in real-world conditions.

Benefits

• Our salary range is generous and we consider each individual’s background and experience when determining final compensation. Base pay may vary based on role scope, job-related knowledge, skills, experience, and the Irvine, California market.

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Principal