Systems Engineer

Deft AI•San Francisco, CA

19d

About The Position

We are seeking a skilled Systems Engineer to join our team. In this role, you will be responsible for developing and maintaining the core software infrastructure that supports our robot data collection stack. You will focus on improving the reliability and performance of the robotics software stack by identifying and resolving system bottlenecks and failure modes. Your work will involve implementing and maintaining software libraries and device drivers for new sensor suites and in-house hardware modules. A key aspect of this role is contributing to systems that ensure safe robot operation, including implementing monitoring, detection, and guardrail mechanisms to prevent unsafe interactions. You will also develop testing infrastructure for robotics software, encompassing unit, integration, and regression testing frameworks. Furthermore, you will build the observability layer for our robotic systems, which includes telemetry, logging, and diagnostics. The role also involves designing and implementing fleet management infrastructure, covering robot health monitoring, software updates, staged rollouts, and rollback mechanisms.

Requirements

Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in Computer Science, Electrical Engineering, Robotics, or a related technical field, or equivalent practical experience.
Strong programming experience in C/C++ and familiarity with Python.
Experience developing software for Linux-based systems, including multi-threaded programming, memory management, and performance optimization.
Experience diagnosing and resolving reliability or performance issues in complex software systems.
Experience working with hardware–software interfaces, such as sensors, embedded devices, or networking hardware.
Strong understanding of systems fundamentals, including operating systems, networking, and concurrent programming.
Ability to design and implement reliable systems that interact with hardware and real-world environments.

Nice To Haves

Experience developing production software for robotics systems or other hardware-interfacing platforms.
Experience working with embedded or edge computing environments.
Experience with Linux systems internals, including kernel development, driver development, or low-level performance profiling.
Experience designing or operating distributed systems or cloud infrastructure.
Experience building systems for monitoring, observability, or remote diagnostics in deployed environments.
Experience working with embedded Linux build systems such as Yocto or similar tools.
Evidence of building or contributing to complex systems projects, such as open-source infrastructure, research systems, or publications at top systems venues.

Responsibilities

Develop and maintain core software infrastructure supporting the robot data collection stack.
Improve reliability and performance across the robotics software stack by diagnosing system bottlenecks and failure modes.
Implement and maintain software libraries and device drivers for new sensor suites and in-house hardware modules.
Contribute to systems that support safe robot operation, including monitoring, detection, and guardrails to prevent unsafe interactions.
Develop testing infrastructure for robotics software, including unit, integration, and regression testing frameworks.
Build the observability layer for robotic systems, including telemetry, logging, and diagnostics.
Design and implement fleet management infrastructure, including robot health monitoring, software updates, staged rollouts, and rollback mechanisms.