[Hiring] Senior Staff Software Engineer, Robot Platform @Agility Robotics

Role Description

Our software team is growing and we are looking for talented engineers to join our agile, world-class team. Our Robot Platform team is the foundational core of our product, dedicated to providing a robust, reliable, and secure software substrate that accelerates all robot feature development. We own the critical layers that all other software teams build upon: middleware, core services, configuration, and telemetry.

As a Senior Staff Software Engineer you will be the key architectural driver, operating at the intersection of long-term strategy and deep technical execution. You will define the component boundaries, communication patterns, and golden path for our robot software stack, while championing engineering excellence and mentoring high-performing engineers across the organization. This role is a rare opportunity to own and evolve mission-critical, cross-cutting systems, from high-performance robotics frameworks to the centralized belief state and behavior coordination engines, ensuring our physical robots operate reliably in dynamic, real-world environments.

Key Responsibilities

• Strategic Ownership & Execution:
  • Define and Evolve Architecture: Own and drive the long-term technical direction for the robot software stack, including component boundaries, data contracts, inter-process communication protocols (RPC/streaming), and deployment workflows.
  • Core Frameworks & Services: Take hands-on ownership of the critical, cross-cutting frameworks and core services that are fundamental dependencies for all robot features, such as:
    • Behavior coordination and state machine frameworks.
    • The robot’s belief state and world representation.
    • Simulation and playback timing coordination mechanisms.
    • Advanced logging, telemetry, and configuration management libraries.
  • Performance & Reliability: Drive performance, determinism, and reliability improvements across the entire on-robot software stack, and evaluate and introduce major infrastructure upgrades.
  • Internal Tooling: Lead the strategy and execution for internal developer tooling, including advanced debugging utilities and scripts for provisioning and testing within simulation and hardware environments.
• Influence & Mentorship:
  • Technical Advisor: Act as the primary technical advisor, mentoring Senior and Staff-level engineers on system design, developer experience, and best practices across the full software development lifecycle.
  • Drive Adoption: Champion the adoption of internal tools and foundational frameworks by cultivating strong collaboration and iterating based on organizational feedback.
• Collaboration & Alignment:
  • Engineering Partnership: Partner directly with AI, Controls, and Perception teams to ensure frameworks meet their performance and capability needs, accelerating their feature delivery.
  • Data Platform: Coordinate with the Data Platform team on advanced logging, serialization, and telemetry strategies.
  • Release Alignment: Align with OS and Release teams on container, image, and deployment primitives, focusing on high-level integration points rather than low-level operating system ownership.

Qualifications

• 12+ years of professional experience in high-performance, real-time, or deeply embedded software engineering, with a significant track record in robotics or similar complex, integrated systems.
• Demonstrated expertise in defining and evolving large-scale software architectures, and a history of ownership over mission-critical, cross-cutting frameworks.
• Mastery of modern C++ and expert-level proficiency in systems programming on Linux.
• Expertise in designing, building, and operating low-latency and highly reliable distributed systems, particularly those with strict timing and determinism requirements.
• Proven experience mentoring and providing architectural guidance to Staff and Principal-level engineers.
• Exceptional ability to autonomously gather complex, cross-team requirements, communicate high-stakes technical trade-offs, and deliver foundational internal solutions.

Bonus Qualifications

• Robotics industry experience.
• Familiarity with 3D graphics programming.
• Proficiency in Rust or Go.
• Kubernetes or other container orchestration systems.
• Bazel or other similar build systems.
• Experience writing and extending code generators.

Benefits

• 401(k) Plan: Includes a 6% company match.
• Equity: Company stock options.
• Insurance Coverage: 100% company-paid medical, dental, vision, and short/long-term disability insurance for employees.
• Benefit Start Date: Eligible for benefits on your first day of employment.
• Well-Being Support: Employee Assistance Program (EAP).
• Time Off:
  • Exempt Employees: Flexible, unlimited PTO and 10 company holidays, including a winter shutdown.
  • Non-Exempt Employees: 10 vacation days, paid sick leave, and 10 company holidays, including a winter shutdown, annually.
• On-Site Perks: Catered lunches four times a week and a variety of healthy snacks and refreshments at our Salem and Pittsburgh locations.
• Parental Leave: Generous paid parental leave programs.
• Work Environment: A culture that supports flexible work arrangements.
• Growth Opportunities: Professional development and tuition reimbursement programs.
• Relocation Assistance: Provided for eligible roles.
• Annual Discretionary Bonus: Provided for eligible roles.

Company Description

Agility Robotics is committed to a work environment in which all individuals are treated with respect and dignity. Each individual has the right to work in a professional atmosphere that promotes equal employment opportunities and prohibits unlawful discriminatory practices, including harassment. Therefore, it is the policy of Agility Robotics to ensure equal employment opportunity without discrimination or harassment on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, age, disability, marital status, citizenship, national origin, genetic information, or any other characteristic protected by law.

Agility Robotics does not accept unsolicited referrals from third-party recruiting agencies. We prioritize direct applicants and encourage all qualified candidates to apply directly through our careers page. If you are represented by a third party, your application may not be considered. To ensure full consideration, please apply directly.

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