Autonomy Engineer – Field Robotics for Wildfire Ops

BurnBot; South San Francisco (CA); Hybrid; USD 150,000 - 200,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Equity – stock options

Health care benefits

Flexible PTO

Job summary

BurnBot in South San Francisco is building remotely operated systems that manage prescribed fire and clear heavy fuel on challenging terrain. The team develops hardware in-house and deploys for agencies across the western U.S.

We seek engineers who can own autonomy for planning, controls, and safety across field robotics. You’ll work onsite in South San Francisco with some remote work days, contributing to a fast-paced, field-focused robotics effort that serves utility and fire management

Qualifications

• B.S. or higher in robotics, computer science, mechanical or electrical engineering, or equivalent experience.
• 5+ years of autonomy work on physical robots or vehicles that operate outdoors.
• Strong C++, and Python where it helps.
• Motion planning and control for moving heavy platforms.
• State estimation with GPS/INS, odometry, SLAM, sensor fusion.
• ROS or ROS 2 in production environments.

Responsibilities

• Coverage and motion planning over real terrain with slope and obstacles.
• Controls for heavy tracked and wheeled machines on uneven ground.
• State estimation and localization where GPS is intermittent.
• Safety behavior: geofencing, fault detection, degraded modes, stopping logic.
• Supervised autonomy — operator-to-machine handoff and multi-machine coordination.
• Validation in simulation and field tests—the field is the tiebreaker.

Skills

C++

Python

Motion planning

State estimation

GPS/INS/SLAM

ROS/ROS 2

Safety-first mindset

Field debugging

Education

B.S. or higher in robotics, CS, mechanical or EE

Tools

Gazebo

Isaac

Job description

BurnBot in South San Francisco is building remotely operated systems that manage prescribed fire and clear heavy fuel on challenging terrain. The team develops hardware in-house and deploys for agencies across the western U.S.

We seek engineers who can own autonomy for planning, controls, and safety across field robotics. You’ll work onsite in South San Francisco with some remote work days, contributing to a fast-paced, field-focused robotics effort that serves utility and fire management