Founding Software Engineer
On-site · Menlo Park, California, United States
Job Summary
Founding Software Engineer role at Gradient Robotics focusing on close-to-hardware software across kernel, firmware, and the autonomy stack. You’ll own data pipelines moving hundreds of megabytes at single-digit millisecond latency, push down latency, and tighten the stack for faster, more deterministic, and reliable real-time inference from AI models to actuators. Responsibilities include shipping performance-critical code to real robots daily, understanding full data flow from AI models to actuators, and improving system determinism. Required: Rust, Python, C++, Linux kernel/embedded systems, Bazel, Nix, HIL testing, CI/CD; Nice-to-have: tracing/profiling with ftrace/flamegraphs, eBPF; Linux I/O with DPDK, SPDK, io_uring. You should have shipped production systems near hardware and experience debugging timing/concurrency issues, owning messy problems and delivering robust software. Location: Menlo Park, CA. This is a FULL_TIME, SENIOR_LEVEL role with no stated relocation or visa sponsorship details.
Required Qualifications
- Founding role
- Shipped production systems near hardware (drivers, kernels, embedded, robotics, or similar)
- Rust, Python, C++, operating systems, multithreading
- Bazel, Nix, HIL testing, CI/CD
- Linux kernel hacking, embedded systems
- experience debugging timing and concurrency issues
- ownership of ambiguous problems and turning them into robust software
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