Senior Robotics Software Engineer, Behaviors
$220,000–$292,000 year
On-siteCosta Mesa, California, United States
Job Summary
Design and implement behavior trees and state machines to control high-level robotic behavior for teams of autonomous platforms. Write software integrations enabling seamless interactions between autonomy stacks and robotic peripherals such as sensors, flight controllers, and radios. Build coordination software that orchestrates complex mission outcomes across networked robots while solving problems spanning networking and systems integration. Partner with autonomy, hardware, and platform teams to ensure products work effectively in the field. Travel up to 25% to test, debug, and deploy systems in operational environments. Contribute across the entire software lifecycle from prototyping through deployment, making pragmatic engineering tradeoffs to support mission-critical outcomes.
Required Qualifications
- Bachelor's or Master's degree in Robotics, Computer Science, Software Engineering, Mathematics, or Physics
- At least 6+ years of hands-on experience developing production-grade software in C++ and/or Rust
- Experience designing and implementing behavior trees, state machines, or comparable frameworks for orchestrating high-level robotic behavior
- Proven ability to write software integrations between autonomy stacks and robotic peripherals such as sensors, flight controllers, and radios
- Strong systems-level knowledge and the ability to navigate and contribute to complex, established codebases
- A 'Whatever It Takes' mindset—executing in an expedient, scalable, and pragmatic way while keeping the mission top-of-mind
- Passion for building software that directly influences mission-critical outcomes
- Willingness to travel up to 25% to test and deploy systems
- Must be eligible for a US security clearance
Desired Qualifications
- Experience with motion planning, perception, localization, and multi-agent coordination across teams of robots
- Familiarity with open-source behavior tree libraries (e.g., BehaviorTree.CPP, py_trees) or comparable autonomy frameworks
- Proficiency in designing Software-in-the-Loop (SIL) simulation environments for behavior validation
- Experience working with embedded systems, flight controllers, and physical devices
- Additional experience with Python, and/or real-time operating systems
- Knowledge of AI/ML applications in robotics and autonomy
Hiring someone like this?
Get your role in front of qualified candidates on Sorce.