Edge Robotics Software Engineer: Perception & Localization

Orchard Robotics; San Francisco (CA); On-site; USD 100,000 - 130,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Generous equity compensation

Comprehensive Health, Vision, and Dental coverage

Close-knit team environment

Job summary

A pioneering agricultural technology company is seeking a Robotics Software Engineer to develop software for AI-powered camera systems on tractors. You will work on perception and localization algorithms, optimize code for edge computing, and support the hardware stack. The ideal candidate has hands-on robotics software development experience and a solid understanding of computer vision. This full-time position is based in San Francisco offering equity compensation and comprehensive benefits.

Qualifications

• 2+ years of real-world industry experience in robotics, perception, or localization.
• Hands-on experience developing robotics software from the ground up.
• Expertise in computer vision, stereo depth perception, pose estimation, and object detection.

Responsibilities

• Develop robotics software for tractor-mounted AI-powered camera systems.
• Implement systems to interpret complex real-world data.
• Optimize code for fast edge computing performance.

Skills

Robotics software development

Computer vision

Image processing

Python

C++

Tools

NVIDIA Jetson

Job description

At Orchard, we’re securing America’s food supply by building the AI Farmer that automates our nation’s farms. We are the industry leader, growing rapidly, and backed by more than $25 million from leading investors, including Quiet Capital, Shine Capital, and General Catalyst.

Every year, hundreds of billions of dollars in crop value are lost because critical farming decisions are made using incomplete and imprecise data. We’re building the technology to change that.

Our AI-powered camera systems mount to tractors and scan millions of trees, vines, and plants, capturing precise data on yield estimates, fruit size, crop health, disease, and more. We train edge vision AI models that analyze every plant and determine exactly what interventions and treatments it needs. That intelligence flows into FruitScope OS, our farm-management platform, where growers can understand their crops, make better decisions, and direct operations in the field.

Today, Orchard’s technology is trusted by some of our nation’s largest farms. They use our products to grow higher-quality crops while reducing chemical use and operating costs, helping them farm more profitably and sustainably than ever before.

Our Culture:

• Unshakeable Resilience – Our customers feed millions of people, and our customers depend on us. We are ultra-hardworking, never give up, and we do whatever it takes.

• Always Keep Moving – We move fast, waste no time, and have an extreme bias towards action. Progress compounds every day, and our impact is measured in decades.

• Improve Everything – At 1% success, we save millions of pounds of food from going to waste. If we are 100% successful we will impact the lives of billions of people across the world.

• Farmers First – Every team member spends at least a few days in the fields with our farmers each month.

• No Job Beneath Us – We’re low ego, own every outcome, and are all working towards the same goal.

The Role:

In order to analyze billions of fruit on farms all year long, our advanced, tractor-mounted camera systems have to know a.) precisely where they are, and b.) everything about the fruit they are seeing. In addition, all of this happens fast, on compute running on the edge, in complex, real-world environments where our systems are subject to all sorts of conditions.

We are looking for a Robotics Software Engineer to invent creative, practical, and robust solutions to real-world computer vision problems relating to perception and localization.

About the role:

• Full-time, in-person role at our San Francisco or Seattle office

• Comprehensive Health, Vision, and Dental coverage, and we cover 100% of the premium

• We move fast, and sometimes this means staying late or working weekends

• Our team is close-knit & highly driven, you’ll work directly with our CEO and entire team

• We’re deeply motivated by the impact we’re making – every line of code written or new system built means less food that goes to waste, and more people who are fed.

What you’ll do:

• Develop robotics software that runs on our tractor-mounted, AI-powered camera systems, including advanced perception & localization algorithms.

• Implement intelligent systems and processes to interpret complex, real-world data (each system collects terabytes of raw image data every day).

• Fuse sensor data (stereo depth, GNSS, etc) to localize our camera system in a farm.

• Optimize code for fast edge computing performance (Python, C++).

• Be a generalist, supporting different parts of our software and hardware stack if needed.

What makes you a good fit:

• Hands-on experience developing robotics software from the ground up.

• 2+ years of real-world industry experience in robotics, perception, or localization.

• Expertise in one or more of the following areas: computer vision, stereo depth perception, pose estimation, object detection, multi-object tracking, image processing, robotics software.

• Enthusiasm for taking on multiple roles and responsibilities as our company grows.

• You like fast-paced environments where you have high ownership over your work.

Bonus Points:

• Experience deploying & optimizing robotics algorithms to run fast on embedded compute like NVIDIA Jetson.

• Familiarity with fusing data from GNSS, IMU, depth, and other sensors.

If you're looking to help make a real, positive impact in the world by building the future of farming, come join us!