Senior Software Lead, Factory Operating System
Industry: Robotics
Location: San Francisco (5 days onsite) — Local preferred or Relocation required (confirm candidate can relocate indefinitely before submitting)
Comp: $180K–$240K base + generous early‑stage equity
Relevant titles: Senior/Staff Software Engineer, Technical Lead, Engineering Manager, Lead Infrastructure Engineer, Robotics Software Engineer (backend/infra), ML Infrastructure Engineer (vision/perception)
The role
Founding‑level, hands‑on software lead (6–10+ years) to own the backend & data infrastructure for our factory operating system. You’ll design the software backbone that connects robotic manufacturing cells, visual/perception data pipelines, and hybrid cloud/on‑prem systems. Start with 1 direct report; help build/lead a 3–4 engineer team.
What you’ll do
- Design & build backend services for planning, scheduling, telemetry, and data capture across robotic & human assembly cells.
- Develop large‑scale visual/perception pipelines (3D video/sensor data) for model improvement & operations.
- Architect hybrid infrastructure (embedded/on‑prem compute + cloud), define data movement between factory and cloud.
- Lead/mentor engineers; partner with robotics, manufacturing, and leadership to define roadmap & ship production systems for pilot programs.
Tech stack
Python, C++, AWS or Google Cloud Platform, Terraform/Infra‑as‑Code, Kubernetes/containers, microservices.
Why this is compelling
- Build the factory OS from scratch for an AI‑native, software‑defined contract manufacturer (assembly focus).
- Real production impact in manufacturing/defense/logistics (not demos).
- Work with world‑class manufacturing leaders (e.g., former Tesla Model Y manufacturing lead) and top robotics researchers.
- Small (~12), fast, highly technical team; meaningful equity + ownership; chance to architect core platform and grow a team.
Candidate profile
Must‑have experience
- Production: Built/shipped large‑scale visual/perception data pipelines (video/camera/LiDAR/sensor).
- Distributed/backend systems at TB–PB scale; strong Python & C++ in production.
- Cloud + on‑prem (hybrid), infra‑as‑code (Terraform), containers/orchestration.
- Technical leadership (Tech Lead / EM / project lead); 0→1 or major infra ownership in high‑ownership teams/startups.
Nice‑to‑have
- Background in robotics / AV / manufacturing systems / ML infra / computer vision.
Soft traits
- Strong ownership; ships production systems; thrives in seed‑stage, fast‑paced environments.
Must be comfortable with
- Onsite SF 5 days/week and dual‑use/Defense work.
Any ONE (preferably multiple):
- Visual/perception pipelines — keywords: perception pipeline, sensor data, camera/video pipelines, LiDAR, large‑scale CV infra.
- Large‑scale distributed systems — high‑throughput data systems, streaming, distributed storage, large backend infra.
- Leadership/ownership — Tech Lead/EM, led engineers, owned infra end‑to‑end, built systems from scratch.
Core hard skills/Tech Stack: Python + C++, distributed systems, data/streaming pipelines, AWS/Google Cloud Platform, hybrid infra, Terraform.
Profiles to avoid:
- NLP/LLM infra‑only (text pipelines), frontend‑only, pure research/academia, no production scale, or small‑scale data only.
- Anyone unwilling to relocate or work onsite 5 days/week.
❌ NLP / LLM infrastructure engineers (text data pipelines)
❌ Frontend engineers
❌ Pure ML researchers or academics
❌ Candidates without production system experience
❌ Engineers who only work on small-scale data systems
The company specifically needs engineers who have handled large-scale visual data systems in production.
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