Head of Robot Behavior & Applications

Burro; Philadelphia (Philadelphia County); On-site; USD 180,000 - 260,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Competitive salary and benefits

Early‑Stage Equity

401K Plan

Unlimited PTO

Paid parental leave

Job summary

Burro is seeking a Director of Robot Applications and Behavior to lead the team owning robot behavior, state machines, and mission sequencing. You will interface with hardware, product, and field operations while driving on-device AI and edge inference initiatives.

The role blends leadership with hands-on software development, guiding engineers to deliver scalable software on real robots and autonomous systems.

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in Computer Science, Robotics, Electrical Engineering, or a related field.
• 8+ years of professional experience building production software with systems that other teams depended on.
• 5+ years managing engineers directly, including hiring, coaching, and performance management.
• Experience designing systems and interfaces that other teams build on top of.
• Experience shipping software on robots, autonomous vehicles, drones, or comparable physical systems.

Responsibilities

• Own the technical direction of the robot behavior stack, including state machines, mission sequencing, user interactions, fault handling, and recovery.
• Manage, coach, and grow the engineers on the team through weekly 1:1s, clear expectations, and honest performance conversations.
• Own backend communication between robot and cloud: telemetry, command and control, and behavior when connectivity drops.
• Own the operator and customer-facing UI, working with Product and design on what the experience should be.
• Own expressive robot behavior, including lights, sound, and motion cues that tell people nearby what the robot is about to do.
• Stay hands-on: write and review code, run design reviews, and take direct ownership of components on the team’s critical path.
• Hire for the team and hold the bar, from writing the role through closing candidates.
• Partner with the DevOps and QA team on build, test, and release workflows that this team depends on.
• Set and track the team’s roadmap in partnership with Product, and communicate progress and tradeoffs clearly to the rest of the company.

Skills

C++

Python

Leadership

Robotics

Communication

Travel

Education

Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in CS, Robotics, EE

Tools

ROS

Job description

Burro is seeking a Director of Robot Applications and Behavior to lead the team owning robot behavior, state machines, and mission sequencing. You will interface with hardware, product, and field operations while driving on-device AI and edge inference initiatives.

The role blends leadership with hands-on software development, guiding engineers to deliver scalable software on real robots and autonomous systems.