Founding Robotics Engineer

a16z speedrun

$130K — $160K *
Consumer Technology
Less than 5 years of experience
Job Overview by Ladders

Qualifications

  • 5-7 years of experience in robotics or related fields
  • Proficiency in programming languages such as C++, Python, or Rust
  • Strong knowledge of ROS 2 and robot systems integration
  • Ability to work across disciplines including mechanical, electrical, and software engineering
  • Hands-on experience with CAD software (SolidWorks, Onshape, Fusion)
  • Intuition for mechanical and electrical troubleshooting
  • Experience with prototyping and testing robotic systems

Responsibilities

  • Integrate various robotic elements into the Munari platform
  • Create software drivers and calibration systems
  • Design and build physical fixtures and testing environments
  • Develop simulation environments and hardware-in-the-loop tests
  • Establish repeatable evaluation tasks and workflows
  • Maintain an efficient and reproducible robotics lab
  • Collaborate with design partners to solve practical robotic challenges

Benefits

  • Opportunities for professional development and growth
  • Collaborative work environment with innovative peers
  • Exposure to cutting-edge robotic technology and systems
  • Possibility to impact real-world applications and solutions
  • Flexible working arrangements and a supportive culture
Full Job Description
The role:

This is the role for the person whose answer to "is this a software, electrical, mechanical, or controls problem?" is usually "yes."

You will make robots, sensors, simulators, and Munari work together. You will bring new robot platforms online, build reference environments, create data-collection and evaluation systems, instrument physical machines, and help turn research ideas into repeatable real-world experiments.

You may lean toward software, mechanical engineering, electrical engineering, controls, or mechatronics. The requirement is not that you fit one discipline perfectly. The requirement is that you can make a complicated physical system work.

What you will work on:
  • Bring new robot embodiments into the Munari platform, including arms, mobile manipulators, industrial systems, and emerging general-purpose platforms.
  • Integrate cameras, grippers, force-torque sensors, tactile sensors, motor controllers, teleoperation systems, and external compute.
  • Build drivers, adapters, calibration systems, robot descriptions, control interfaces, and data-collection tooling.
  • Create reference tasks, evaluation environments, teleoperation workflows, and repeatable demonstrations.
  • Design and fabricate fixtures, mounts, enclosures, test rigs, wiring, and rapid hardware modifications.
  • Build simulation environments, hardware-in-the-loop tests, digital twins, and fault-injection systems.
  • Develop physical benchmarks for failure detection, recovery, safety, and policy evaluation.
  • Maintain a high-velocity robotics lab in which experiments can be reproduced rather than rediscovered.
  • Work directly with early design partners to integrate their robots and solve the ugly last-mile problems that appear only in the real world.
You may be a strong fit if:
  • You have personally built, integrated, repaired, or deployed complicated robotic or electromechanical systems.
  • You can write useful software in C++, Python, Rust, or a similar language.
  • You are comfortable with ROS 2, robot kinematics, controls, calibration, sensors, and hardware interfaces.
  • You can move between a terminal, oscilloscope, CAD model, 3D printer, machine shop, and toolbox.
  • You have strong mechanical or electrical intuition and know how to debug a problem methodically.
  • You enjoy broad ownership and are energized, rather than intimidated, by incomplete documentation and unfamiliar hardware.
  • You have built projects that crossed disciplinary boundaries and can explain precisely what you personally owned.

Experience with SolidWorks, Onshape, Fusion, machining, additive manufacturing, PCB design, motor control, industrial automation, teleoperation, Isaac Sim, MuJoCo, safety systems, or field deployments is helpful. We are explicitly open to unconventional roboticists and exceptional hardware hackers.

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