Principal Software Engineer – Robot Applications & Voice AI

Cerence AI; San Francisco (CA); Hybrid; USD 166,000 - 264,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Annual bonus

Medical, dental, vision insurance

Paid time off

Paid holidays

Equity awards

Remote/hybrid work option

Job summary

Cerence is seeking a Principal Software Engineer for Robot Applications & Voice AI in the California Bay Area. You will shape the cognitive layer for humanoid robots, turning human intent into actionable tasks and building multi-modal AI systems that interact naturally with people and the environment.

You will work with experts in Voice AI, Agentic AI, and robotics, delivering robust software across edge devices and cloud services.

Qualifications

• Must have strong software engineering experience with Python and/or C++.
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Responsibilities

• Implement high-level application software and robotic behavioral state machines.
• Translate speech, gestures, and context into robotic tasks.
• Integrate vision, scene understanding, and voice interactions for context.
• Develop voice applications handling STT, NLU, dialog management, wake-word, and TTS.
• Build orchestration workflows with LLMs, VLMs, memory, tool-calling, and reasoning.
• Integrate navigation, manipulation, perception, and device control services.
• Balance edge and cloud execution for latency and reliability.
• Collaborate across robotics, AI, cloud, and embedded teams.
• Contribute to testing, observability, and CI/CD in production.

Skills

BehaviorTree.CPP

Cognitive AI

Python

C++

API-driven architecture

Edge computing

Cloud AI services

CI/CD

Human-Robot Interaction

Education

Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in CS/Robotics/AI

Tools

ROS2

Docker

Kubernetes

Job description

A Moving Experience

Principal Software Engineer – Robot Applications & Voice AI

Location: California Bay area

Humanoid robots become truly useful when they understand human intent and convert it into meaningful action. At Cerence, we are building the cognitive and application layer that combines Voice AI, Agentic AI, multimodal reasoning, and robotic capabilities into intuitive human-robot experiences.

Role Overview

The Principal Software Engineer drives the application and cognitive layer of our humanoid robot. Working directly with the core robotics platform designed by our Architect, you will turn human intent into high-level physical actions. This role focuses on building advanced voice applications, multi-modal context systems, and programming the core business logic and behavior trees that make the robot interactive, helpful, and intuitive.

Your Impact

• Build software powering the next generation of intelligent humanoid robots.
• Work on Voice AI, Agentic AI, LLMs, VLMs, and Physical AI products.
• Collaborate with experts in robotics, conversational AI, embedded systems, and cloud computing.
• See your work deployed in real-world robotic environments.

Key Responsibilities

• Application Layer & Business Logic: Implement high-level application software, interaction workflows, and robotic behavioral state machines.
• Intent-to-Action Orchestration: Build the core logic that translates human speech, gestures, environmental cues, and contextual information into deterministic robotic tasks.
• Multi‑Modal Interaction Fusion: Integrate vision pipelines, object detection, scene understanding, spatial tracking, and voice interactions to provide contextual awareness.
• Voice Application Engineering: Develop robust voice applications managing STT, NLU, dialog management, wake‑word detection, and TTS interfaces.
• Agentic AI Development: Build orchestration workflows combining LLMs, VLMs, memory systems, tool calling, reasoning engines, and robotic capabilities.
• Robot Capability Integration: Consume and orchestrate navigation, manipulation, perception, and device‑control services exposed by the robotics platform.
• Edge/Cloud Partitioning: Optimize applications to balance low‑latency local execution with cloud‑based AI services.
• Multi‑Device & Ecosystem Integrations: Integrate robots with mobile devices, smart home ecosystems, enterprise applications, and cloud APIs.
• Data Loop Contribution: Build telemetry, logging, and evaluation mechanisms supporting continuous model improvement.
• Deployment & Production Readiness: Contribute to testing, observability, CI/CD, and production deployment practices.

Required Skills & Experience

Mandatory (Must Have)

• Orchestration & Logic Frameworks: Strong proficiency in BehaviorTree.CPP, state machines, workflow orchestration engines, or task‑planning architectures.
• Cognitive AI & Agent Systems: Hands‑on experience building applications using LLMs, VLMs, tool‑calling architectures, agent frameworks, RAG systems, or semantic memory platforms.
• Programming: 5+ years of professional software engineering experience using Python and/or C++.
• Application Architecture: Experience designing scalable application‑layer software, API‑driven systems, distributed services, and event‑driven architectures.
• Edge Compute Management: Experience optimizing software on resource‑constrained edge hardware under intermittent connectivity conditions.
• Cloud & AI Services: Experience integrating cloud AI services, model serving platforms, and containerized deployments.
• Software Quality & Production Delivery: Automated testing, debugging, monitoring, observability, and CI/CD practices.
• Human‑Robot Interaction Mindset: Experience designing natural, context‑aware human‑machine experiences.

Good to Have (Highly Valued Plus)

• Voice & Speech Stack: Cerence, Whisper, Deepgram, Azure Speech, ElevenLabs, AWS Speech Services, STT/TTS/NLU platforms.
• Robotics Framework Consumption: ROS2 application nodes, Services, Actions, Topics, navigation and manipulation APIs.
• Vision & Multi‑Modal AI: Object detection, scene understanding, visual grounding, and spatial reasoning systems.
• Audio Hardware Integration: Beamforming, Acoustic Echo Cancellation (AEC), microphone arrays, and noise suppression.
• Physical AI Applications: Experience building software for humanoids, service robots, warehouse automation, or embodied AI systems.
• Data & Learning Pipelines: Telemetry, analytics, evaluation systems, retraining pipelines, and AI feedback loops.
• Containerization & Deployment: Docker, Kubernetes, OTA updates, and edge deployment environments.
• Startup Environment: Comfortable owning solutions from concept through deployment in a fast‑moving environment.

Why Join the Team

• Build software powering the next generation of intelligent humanoid robots.
• Work across Voice AI, Agentic AI, Physical AI, and Conversational Systems.
• Collaborate with experts in speech, AI, robotics, cloud, and embedded systems.
• Help shape the future of human‑machine interaction.

What We Offer

• We offer a generous compensation and benefits package (in addition to the base salary), including:
• Salary range $165,550.00 USD- $264,450.00 USD It is not typical for offers to be made at or near the top of the range. The actual salary will be determined based on experience and other job‑related factors.
• Annual bonus opportunity
• Insurance coverage (medical, dental, vision, life, and disability)
• Paid time off
• Paid holidays
• Company contribution to the RRSP (Registered Retirement Savings Plan)
• Equity awards for certain positions and levels
• Remote and/or hybrid work available depending on the position All compensation and benefits are subject to the terms and conditions of the underlying plans or programs, as applicable, and may be amended, terminated, or replaced from time to time.

Education & Qualifications

• Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in Computer Science, Robotics, Software Engineering, AI, or a related discipline.

About Cerence

Cerence is a global leader in conversational AI and voice technologies, expanding innovations beyond automotive into robotics and physical AI.

Equal Opportunity Employer

Cerence is committed to providing equal employment opportunities and creating an inclusive environment for all employees.

Cerence Inc. (Nasdaq: CRNC and www.cerence.com) is the global industry leader in creating unique, moving experiences for the automotive world. Spun out from Nuance in October 2019, Cerence is a new, independent company that has quickly gained traction as a leader in the automotive voice assistant space, working with all of the world’s leading automakers – from Ford and Fiat Chrysler to Daimler, Audi and BMW to Geely and SAIC – to transform how a car feels, responds and learns. Its track record is built on more than 20 years of industry experience and leadership and more than 500 million cars on the road today across more than 70 languages.

As Cerence looks to the future and continues an ambitious growth agenda, we need someone to join the team and help build the future of voice and AI in cars. This is an exciting opportunity to join Cerence’s passionate, dedicated, global team and be a part of meaningful innovation in a rapidly growing industry.

EQUAL OPPORTUNITY EMPLOYER

Cerence is firmly committed to Equal Employment Opportunity (EEO) and to compliance with all federal, state and local laws that prohibit employment discrimination on the basis of age, race, color, gender, gender identity, gender expression, sex, sex stereotyping, pregnancy, national origin, ancestry, religion, physical or mental disability, medical condition, marital status, citizenship status, sexual orientation, protected military or veteran status, genetic information and other protected classifications. Cerence Equal Employment Opportunity Policy Statement.

All prospective and current Employees need to remain vigilant when it comes to executing security policies in the workplace. This includes:

• Following workplace security protocols and training programs to familiarize with the ways to maintain a safe workplace.
• Following security procedures to report any suspicious activity.
• Having respect for corporate security procedures to allow those procedures to be effective.
• Adhering to company's compliance and regulations.
• Encouraging to follow a zero tolerance for workplace violence.
• Basic knowledge of information security and data privacy requirements (e.g., how to protect data & how to be handling this data).
• Demonstrative knowledge of information security through internal training programs.