Robotics Automation Software Engineer

Urban League of Rhode Island; Skokie (IL); On-site; USD 90,000 - 123,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Bonus compensation

Comprehensive health plans

401k matching up to 5%

Additional 4% retirement contribution

Flexible working arrangements

Paid time off

Job summary

UL Research Institutes in Skokie, IL seeks a Robotics Software Engineer to design and maintain software infrastructure linking laboratory automation, robotics, scientific instruments, and data systems into autonomous workflows.

You will work with scientists, automation engineers, robotics engineers, and data scientists to build scalable software for experimental orchestration and closed-loop research, applying modern practices including Git, testing, and containerization.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in computer science, software engineering, computer engineering, robotics, controls, or a related field
• Minimum 4 years of professional software development experience
• Experience building scalable software systems beyond standalone scripts
• Experience integrating laboratory instruments, robotics, automation, or other cyber-physical systems is strongly preferred
• Experience working in a scientific research, laboratory, manufacturing, or research and development environment is preferred

Responsibilities

• Develop and maintain software integrations for laboratory instruments, robotics, and automation platforms.
• Design and implement scalable APIs and reusable interfaces for communication across heterogeneous systems.
• Build workflow orchestration for multi-step experimental processes across synthesis, sample handling, characterization, and analysis.
• Develop and maintain sample tracking, metadata, and lineage capabilities to support experimental traceability.
• Implement scheduling, system-state management, error handling, and recovery capabilities to support reliable unattended operation.
• Integrate systems using APIs, OPC-UA, Ethernet/IP, Modbus TCP, serial communication, and related protocols.
• Collaborate with Data Science team to support integration with scientific databases, data platforms, ML models, and decision tools.
• Develop monitoring, logging, dashboards, and diagnostic tools in conjunction with Data Science team.
• Apply modern software engineering practices including Git, testing, CI/CD, documentation, and containerization.
• Troubleshoot and resolve software issues, implementing proactive solutions to enhance system stability.
• Collaborate with multidisciplinary teams to translate laboratory needs into scalable software solutions.
• Perform other duties as assigned

Skills

Python

C#/.NET

APIs

Distributed systems

Hardware integration

SQL/NoSQL

Workflow orchestration

Scheduling/state machines

Git

Docker

CI/CD

Documentation

Troubleshooting

Collaboration

Robotics/controls

Education

Bachelor's degree in computer science, software engineering, computer engineering, robotics, controls, or related field

Tools

OPC-UA

Ethernet/IP

Modbus TCP

Serial communication

Job description

UL Research Institutes in Skokie, IL seeks a Robotics Software Engineer to design and maintain software infrastructure linking laboratory automation, robotics, scientific instruments, and data systems into autonomous workflows.

You will work with scientists, automation engineers, robotics engineers, and data scientists to build scalable software for experimental orchestration and closed-loop research, applying modern practices including Git, testing, and containerization.