Staff/senior Staff Software Engineer, Robot Platform

Agility Robotics Agility Robotics · Robotics · Remote · Software Engineering

Staff/Senior Staff Software Engineer for Robot Platform at Agility Robotics. This role focuses on defining and evolving the architecture of the robot software stack, including middleware, core services, configuration, and telemetry. The engineer will own critical, cross-cutting frameworks, drive performance and reliability improvements, and lead internal tooling strategy. They will also mentor other engineers and collaborate with AI, Controls, and Perception teams.

What you'd actually do

  1. 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.
  2. 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:
  3. Performance & Reliability: Drive performance, determinism, and reliability improvements across the entire on-robot software stack, and evaluate and introduce major infrastructure upgrades.
  4. 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.
  5. 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.

Skills

Required

  • high-performance, real-time, or deeply embedded software engineering
  • robotics or similar complex, integrated systems
  • defining and evolving large-scale software architectures
  • ownership over mission-critical, cross-cutting frameworks
  • modern C++
  • systems programming on Linux
  • designing, building, and operating low-latency and highly reliable distributed systems
  • strict timing and determinism requirements
  • mentoring and providing architectural guidance to Staff and Principal-level engineers
  • gathering complex, cross-team requirements
  • communicating high-stakes technical trade-offs
  • delivering foundational internal solutions

Nice to have

  • Robotics industry experience
  • 3D graphics programming
  • Rust
  • Go
  • Kubernetes
  • container orchestration systems
  • Bazel
  • build systems
  • writing and extending code generators

What the JD emphasized

  • 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.