Staff Forward Deployed Engineer
A staff-level engineer embedded on-site at a large AI robotics customer in the SF Bay Area, debugging and shipping production fixes across Standard Bots' external control surface (TypeScript/Node services, Python SDK, ROS 2 adapter, robot controller) and turning field learnings into platform features. Requires 8+ years of experience with deep Python and TypeScript/Node fluency.
- Compensation
- $215K–$275K / yr
- Location
- San Francisco, CA
- Work setup
- Onsite
- Seniority
- Staff
- Employment
- Full time
- Experience
- 8+ years
- Category
- Solutions engineering
- Posted
Skills
Must have
- 8+ years of professional software engineering, with end-to-end ownership of a technical problem space and leadership of complex cross-team work
- Root-cause debugging across distributed systems: Linux, containers, networking, logs, and timing
- Experience working directly with demanding technical customers
- Clear written communication of requirements, incident write-ups, and decisions
- Fluency in Python and TypeScript/Node.js
- Range across the rest of the stack: React, C++, Kubernetes
- Willingness to work on-site at the customer's facility five days a week for the first 9-12 months
Nice to have
- Time as a forward deployed, solutions, or customer-embedded engineer
- Working knowledge of ROS 2
- Hands-on robotics/realtime control experience (ROS 2, streaming or trajectory APIs, motion control at 100 Hz+)
- Familiarity with safety stops and collision handling
Full description
About Standard Bots
Standard Bot's mission is to significantly lower the barrier to entry to real-world automation, bringing the power of bits to the world of atoms and unlocking productivity for entire new industries and users. Our user-facing applications and APIs directly empower individuals and developers to jump directly into solving their challenges without the need for a background in robotics or automation. A relentless focus on simplicity and ease of use brings this revolutionary potential to new users and industries.
The Opportunity: Forward Deployed With a Large Robotics API Customer
We are looking for an exceptional Staff Software Engineer to work on site with one of our largest customers. That customer is an AI robotics company that drives our arms from its own models through our streaming APIs and SDK. You join our SDK and external APIs team and build on our platform. For the first nine to twelve months, you spend most of your week at the customer's facility in the San Francisco Bay Area.
Your impact will be measured not just by fixing their problem but building production level fixes that make it into our product. It will also be measured by how much of what you learn on site shapes the platform for all developers who build on our APIs.
What You'll Do
Strategic Architecture & Long-Term Vision
- Define the Future: Own the technical vision for how advanced customers drive our robots programmatically: realtime streaming control, the Python SDK, ROS 2 integration, and the safety limits that make streamed motion trustworthy across a fleet.
- Decouple and Scale: Generalize what you learn on site into product capabilities with clear, stable interfaces. Each fix and feature you ship should be brought back to the team to bring into the product for all developers. You keep that standard through all one-off solutions.
- Standard Setter: Set the bar for the reliability, safety, and observability of our external control surface. Failure modes found in the field then become tested guarantees in the platform.
Complex Project Leadership & Execution
- Represent the Customer Inside Engineering: Be the customer's technical point of contact and the team's eyes on their floor. Convert what you see into prioritized, testable requirements. Hold the line when a request takes the product somewhere unsafe or off the roadmap.
- Pragmatic Trade-Offs: Decide clearly between the fast fix the customer needs this week and the durable change the platform needs. Put those decisions in writing for both sides.
- Hands-on Delivery: Ship fixes and features across our stack, from TypeScript/Node services and our Python SDK to a ROS 2 adapter and the robot controller. Take each one from a first reproduction at the customer's cell to a release-gated change in the product.