Principal Robotics Hardware Architect

Agility Robotics Agility Robotics · Robotics · Fremont, CA · Hardware

Principal Robotics Hardware Architect to lead and elevate the architecture team, driving system-level design decisions for humanoid robots. This role involves ensuring the integration of complex subsystems into a cohesive, performant, and reliable robot, partnering with cross-functional teams.

What you'd actually do

  1. Own the end-to-end robotics system hardware architecture, ensuring scalable, and reliable integration of perception, compute, actuation, kinematics, control, and safety systems.
  2. Provide technical direction and system level architectural leadership to other architects as well as across hardware teams, guiding the design of high-performance robotic subsystems.
  3. Lead trade studies and architecture reviews across disciplines, balancing performance, functional safety, complexity, manufacturability, cost, and reliability.
  4. Partner with cross functional teams including software controls and simulation teams to ensure architectural decisions are grounded in system-level modeling, simulation, and performance analysis.
  5. Collaborate closely with systems engineering, test, and integration teams to ensure architecture translates into testable, traceable requirements.

Skills

Required

  • 15+ years of experience in robotics hardware development
  • at least 5 years leading system architecture or as a chief/principal engineer
  • Deep understanding of robotic system design, particularly humanoid or legged systems, actuator and transmission design, including tradeoffs in mass, structures, fatigue, thermals, actuation, sensing, power, compute, and safety.
  • Proven experience in architecting and delivering complex electromechanical robotic systems into field or commercial deployment.
  • Strong foundation in robot kinematics, dynamics, controls, and system modeling.
  • Experience with simulation tools such as MuJoCo, Gazebo, or equivalent, and integrating simulation into system design and validation workflows.
  • Familiarity with functional safety concepts, FMEA/FMECA, and hazard analysis in robotic systems.
  • Strong communication and collaboration skills, with experience influencing decisions across multidisciplinary teams.

Nice to have

  • Prior experience architecting full-stack robotics systems in a humanoid, legged mobility, mobile manipulation, or high-DOF automation platform.
  • Hands-on experience with perception pipelines, real-time control systems, and safety-rated architectures.
  • Familiarity with AI and reinforcement learning techniques applied to robotics learning and control.
  • PhD or Master’s degree in Robotics, Mechatronics, Mechanical Engineering, Electrical Engineering, or a related field.
  • Experience mentoring and growing teams of senior engineers and staff-level talent.

What the JD emphasized

  • humanoid or legged systems
  • humanoid or legged robotics
  • humanoid, legged mobility, mobile manipulation, or high-DOF automation platform