Robotics Software Engineer – Robot Integrations

Job description

[FieldAI](http://www.fieldai.com)’s Irvine team is where embodied AI meets real robots, real sensors, and real field deployments. Based in the heart of Southern California’s robotics ecosystem, we build risk-aware, reliable, field-ready AI systems that solve the hardest problems in robotics and unlock the full potential of embodied intelligence. If you want your work to ship, get tested on hardware, and improve through real deployments, Irvine is the place. We go beyond typical data-driven approaches or pure transformer-only architectures, combining rigorous engineering with learning systems proven in globally deployed solutions that deliver results today and get better every time our robots run in the field. [Field AI](https://www.fieldai.com/) is transforming how robots interact with the real world. We are building risk-aware, reliable, and field-ready AI systems that address the most complex challenges in robotics, unlocking the full potential of embodied intelligence. We go beyond typical data-driven approaches or pure transformer-based architectures, and are charting a new course, with already-globally-deployed solutions delivering real-world results and rapidly improving models through real-field applications. ### About The Job Field AI is building the future of autonomy—from rugged terrain to real-world deployment. We’re on a mission to develop intelligent, adaptable robotic systems that operate beyond simulation and thrive in unpredictable environments. As our Robotics Software Engineer – Robot Integrations, you’ll bring new robotic platforms into our software stack and take them from first power-on to field-ready, building everything from drivers and API integrations to the low level behaviors that make a robot truly autonomous. You’ll be part of a deeply technical team advancing real-world robotic capabilities through cutting-edge research, simulation tools, and field validation. If working hands on with quadrupeds, humanoids, and wheeled robots across a wide variety of problems excites you, and you want to work where your code hits the ground (literally)—this is your role. This is Field AI. ### What You'll Get To Do - Bring up and integrate new robotic platforms into Field AI’s software stack, including legged, wheeled-legged, wheeled, and humanoid systems - Be the first to get a new robot moving under Field AI autonomy, from initial bring-up to its first autonomous mission in the field - Develop and maintain robot drivers and interfaces for sensing, state, command, and control, working across vendor APIs and SDKs, middleware, and internal abstractions - Implement low level behaviors that platforms are missing out of the box, such as docking and charging, stand up and recovery, mode switching, and safe stop handling - Implement hardware safety interfaces on each platform, such as emergency stop and safe stop paths, so the safety layer can act on any robot - Write the onboard software that runs on the robot’s compute, from real time command loops and state publishing to health monitoring and diagnostics - Implement and adapt planning, locomotion, and control algorithms on new platforms, such as porting a locomotion controller to a new legged robot or fitting our navigation stack to a new platform - Tune control and command paths on each platform to improve stability, responsiveness, and motion quality - Debug issues that cross software, networking, timing, hardware communication, and system configuration boundaries - Support new projects and robots as they come in, adapting quickly to unfamiliar hardware, APIs, and requirements - Build reusable integration patterns, diagnostics, and tooling that make adding the next robot faster and more reliable - Partner with hardware and software platform teams through bring-up, validation, bench testing, and full robot trials in the lab and in the field ### What You Have - Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in Robotics, Computer Science, Electrical Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, or a related field - Hands-on experience working with real robotic systems through industry, research, or substantial project work - Solid software engineering skills in C++ and Python in Linux-based environments - Familiarity with robotics middleware such as ROS/ROS 2 - Understanding of robot interfaces across sensing, state estimation, actuation, and control - Comfort debugging real-world system issues involving networking, timing, hardware communication, and software integration - Willingness to work across adjacent domains, including software, electronics, networking, and mechanical interfaces ### The Extras That Set You Apart - Experience integrating quadruped, humanoid, or wheeled platforms using vendor SDKs (for example Boston Dynamics Spot, Unitree, ANYbotics, or similar) - Experience writing or maintaining robot drivers, SDK wrappers, or hardware abstraction layers - Experience with communication interfaces and protocols such as CAN, EtherCAT, serial, and UDP/TCP. - Experience implementing robot behaviors such as docking, charging, recovery, or payload control - Familiarity with control tuning and performance profiling on physical robots - Exposure to calibration, time synchronization, diagnostics, and deployment tooling for robotic platforms - Familiarity with simulation, hardware-in-the-loop (HIL) testing, or regression testing pipeline