Real-Time Robotics Runtime Engineer | Linux, IPC & ROS

Proception Inc.; Palo Alto (CA); On-site; USD 180,000 - 260,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Competitive salary

Equity

Health/dental/vision benefits

Job summary

Proception Inc. is seeking a seasoned robotics software engineer to own and evolve the runtime infrastructure that powers real robots.

You will design, implement, and optimize the core software stack to ensure reliable operation and scalable deployment across platforms. You will integrate firmware, sensors, cameras, and perception into Linux‑based systems, build IPC and data pipelines, and develop visualization and debugging tools for observability and deployment.

Qualifications

• BS/MSc/PhD in Computer Science, Robotics, or related technical fields.
• Strong background in Linux systems programming, shell scripting, and process-level debugging.
• Solid understanding of real-time and distributed systems (latency, throughput, scheduling).
• Fluency in Rust and C++/Python.
• Experience designing and debugging IPC systems (shared memory, ZeroMQ, DDS, gRPC, or similar).
• Hands‑on experience integrating cameras and high‑rate sensors on Linux platforms (V4L2, GStreamer, libcamera, or equivalents).
• Experience working with ROS or ROS2 in real robotic systems
• Comfortable debugging multi‑process, multi‑threaded systems under timing and resource constraints
• Familiarity with profiling/debugging tools such as perf, gdb, strace, and system tracing tools
• Experience with real‑time Linux or deterministic networking
• Familiarity with URDF/MJCF/SDF and robotics simulation environments (MuJoCo, Isaac Sim, Gazebo)

Responsibilities

• Design and maintain the robot runtime architecture including process lifecycles, IPC, and data flow
• Integrate embedded firmware, sensors, and cameras into Linux‑based robotic systems
• Build and maintain real‑time streaming and visualization tools for robot state, perception, and system health
• Develop deployment, configuration, and versioning pipelines for on‑robot software
• Support simulation, hardware‑in‑the‑loop, and sim‑to‑real deployment workflows
• Improve observability, fault detection, and debuggability of robot software stacks
• Collaborate closely with firmware, perception, and controls teams to define clean system interfaces
• Ensure reliability and performance of robot software under real‑world operating conditions
• Own the runtime infrastructure that determines robot reliability and performance
• Work hands‑on with real robots, sensors, and production systems
• Collaborate closely with embedded, perception, and control teams

Skills

BS/MSc/PhD in CS/Robotics

Linux systems programming

Shell scripting

Process-level debugging

Real-time systems

Distributed systems

Rust

C++

Python

IPC systems

Cameras integration

Sensors integration

ROS/ROS2

Multi-process debugging

Multi-threaded debugging

Perf

GDB

Strace

System tracing

Real-time Linux

Deterministic networking

URDF/MJCF/SDF

Robotics simulation

Education

BS/MSc/PhD in CS/Robotics

Tools

V4L2

GStreamer

libcamera

Job description

Proception Inc. is seeking a seasoned robotics software engineer to own and evolve the runtime infrastructure that powers real robots.

You will design, implement, and optimize the core software stack to ensure reliable operation and scalable deployment across platforms. You will integrate firmware, sensors, cameras, and perception into Linux‑based systems, build IPC and data pipelines, and develop visualization and debugging tools for observability and deployment.