Senior Robotics Solutions Engineer

Accountabilities:

• Lead technical discovery at enterprise customer sites, establishing a detailed baseline of automation cells, including robot models, controllers, firmware, I/O maps, safety architecture, cameras, sensors, cycle times, throughput, and physical constraints.
• Investigate undocumented or poorly documented systems by asking precise questions, validating assumptions, and working directly with operators, maintenance teams, industrial engineers, IT leaders, and other stakeholders.
• Design, build, integrate, and commission control and motion logic for industrial palletizing and sortation applications.
• Develop motion sequences covering pick-and-place operations, stacking, pallet patterns, singulation, depalletizing, and recovery from partial or failed cycles.
• Take ownership of existing production systems and improve their reliability, behavior, and maintainability where required.
• Own the functional safety approach for deployed robotic systems, including risk assessments, safeguarding, emergency stops, interlocks, safe-speed and separation considerations, and required safety documentation.
• Design and implement control and telemetry interfaces between the platform and robot controllers, PLCs, fleet managers, conveyors, and sortation systems.
• Work with technologies and protocols such as ROS 2, vendor SDKs, controller APIs, HTTPS/REST, MQTT, OPC UA, and industrial fieldbus systems as appropriate to each deployment.
• Translate computer vision classification and inspection outputs into safe, timely, and reliable machine actions, including appropriate handling of uncertain, incomplete, or incorrect model predictions.
• Design robust failure handling for real-world operating conditions, including dropped connections, partial task completion, inconsistent telemetry, and discrepancies between reported system state and physical machine state.
• Build functional operator-facing interfaces that visualize robot-driven work in progress and surface exceptions that require human intervention.
• Develop documentation, test coverage, deployment procedures, and internal training materials so customer solutions become durable and reusable engineering capabilities rather than one-off implementations.
• Collaborate with product, AI, engineering, and customer-facing teams to determine which capabilities should become reusable platform features and which requirements are appropriately customer-specific.
• Communicate technical constraints, project risks, scope limitations, and delivery trade-offs clearly to both internal leadership and customer stakeholders.
• Support enterprise deployments with a strong understanding of customer operations, shift patterns, production priorities, throughput requirements, and the operational cost of downtime.

Requirements

• 3-month contract for a senior, customer-facing robotics engineering role.
• 5+ years of relevant robotics, controls, software, or systems engineering experience is strongly aligned with the scope of the position.
• Proven production experience programming and commissioning industrial robotic arms, with experience using platforms such as Yaskawa Motoman, Fanuc, ABB, KUKA, or Universal Robots. Coursework and hobby-only robotics experience is not sufficient.
• Strong understanding of robot motion, including kinematics, coordinate frames, tool center points, path planning, singularities, payload and reach limitations, collision avoidance, and palletizing/depalettizing pattern logic.
• Hands-on experience using industrial robot teach pendants and diagnosing differences between programmed behavior and actual production-cell behavior.
• Practical functional safety knowledge, including ISO 10218, ISO/TS 15066 where collaborative operation applies, risk assessment methodology, safety-rated monitored stops, category and performance-level concepts, and safety PLCs.
• Strong controls integration experience involving PLCs, industrial protocols, sensors, conveyors, sortation systems, and the electrical realities of production automation cells.
• Production experience with ROS or ROS 2, combined with the judgment to determine when a robotics framework is or is not appropriate for an industrial application.
• Strong programming ability in Python and C++ for robotics and control applications.
• Experience building production services using TypeScript, Node.js, Go, or Python, with strong understanding of event-driven integration patterns.
• Familiarity with REST, gRPC, MQTT, and WebSockets and the ability to integrate distributed software systems with physical automation.
• Ability to build a functional operator interface using React or a similar front-end framework when required.
• Comfortable working alongside computer vision systems and reasoning about latency, confidence thresholds, false positives, uncertainty, and the consequences of perception errors for physical machines.
• Strong customer-facing communication skills, with the ability to discuss throughput, cost, and operational outcomes with distribution leaders while also troubleshooting detailed mechanical, controls, or maintenance issues with technical teams.
• Proven experience delivering solutions onsite for enterprise customers and adapting effectively to customer production schedules and operating environments.
• Strong technical writing skills, with the ability to produce documentation that is useful to both engineers and executive stakeholders.
• Demonstrated ability to identify unrealistic scope or timelines early, communicate concerns with evidence, and help teams make informed delivery decisions.
• Product-minded approach, with the ability to distinguish reusable platform capabilities from genuinely customer-specific requirements.
• Strong commercial awareness and the ability to consider cost, scope, customer value, technical risk, and long-term maintainability when making engineering decisions.
• High autonomy, curiosity, sound judgment, and comfort working in an environment where processes and requirements may still be evolving.
• Willingness to work directly in customer facilities and represent the technical organization independently in enterprise environments.

Benefits

• Three-month contract with the opportunity to make a direct impact on the development and deployment of robotics solutions.
• Remote, United States-based working arrangement between customer site visits and development work.
• Opportunity to work at the intersection of industrial robotics, computer vision, AI, automation, and physical logistics.
• Direct ownership of robotics solutions from field discovery through architecture, development, commissioning, testing, and handoff.
• High level of autonomy and visibility, with direct interaction with enterprise customers and senior operational stakeholders.
• Opportunity to work with industrial robotics platforms, PLCs, ROS/ROS 2, computer vision systems, industrial protocols, and modern software architectures.
• Exposure to high-volume distribution environments and complex real-world automation challenges.
• Opportunity to help establish reusable robotics capabilities rather than delivering isolated customer integrations.
• Potential to influence product direction by identifying which field-proven capabilities should become part of the broader platform.
• Collaboration with engineering, AI, product, and customer-facing teams in a highly entrepreneurial environment.
• Opportunity to work on applications spanning palletizing and pallet sorting, with potential expansion into auditing, pick-and-pack validation, and material handling.
• Compensation and any additional benefits are determined by the hiring company and will be discussed during the recruitment process.