Robotics Engineer

Neuralink; Austin, South San Francisco (TX, CA); On-site; USD 151,000 - 281,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Medical Insurance

Dental Insurance

Vision Insurance

Paid Holidays

Meals Provided

Equity RSUs

401(k) Plan

Parental Leave

Flexible Time Off

Job summary

Neuralink is seeking a hands-on robotics test engineer in Austin to build and run the next generation surgical robot test fleet. You will break robots into testable components, build rigs, and automate ALT to verify reliability and capture evidence for safe scaling.

You’ll collaborate with Sim and HIL teams, design fixtures, and develop repeatable regression tests that reveal failures and prevent wasted hardware time. Seniority helps, but exceptional ability matters most.

Qualifications

• Hands-on robotics experience. You’ve made a robot work, broken it, and made it work again.
• Enough Python to automate tests and analyze results, and a basic understanding of Rust.
• Hands-on experience with motor drives, encoders, sensors, and hardware interfaces such as Ethernet, SPI, I²C, UART, or EtherCAT.
• Comfortable reading schematics, building instrumented fixtures, and using oscilloscopes, logic analyzers, and data acquisition systems to diagnose failures.
• High agency on hardware, comfortable with noise, intermittent faults, and failures that resist reproduction.
• Discipline about repeatability, traceability, and recording what actually happened.
• Judgment to know when a robot is ready, and the diligence to bring the evidence to back it up.
• Effective at using AI agents to build tooling, analyze data and automate failure investigations.

Responsibilities

• Bring up, instrument, and run robots and component test rigs.
• Hunt failures across mechanics, electronics, firmware, and software.
• Automate routine robot V&V, test setup, execution, recovery, and results.
• Design and build fixtures, sensing, and logging, with safe operating procedures and fast turnaround.
• Work with Sim and HIL engineers to make the models and tests match reality.
• Turn real failures into repeatable regression tests so we stop burning hardware time on known bugs.

Skills

Robotics

Python

Rust

Tools

Motor drives

Encoders

Sensors

Ethernet

SPI

I²C

UART

EtherCAT

Job description

The Role

Neuralink’s next generation surgical robot will perform brain surgery at scale, installing hundreds of tiny threads into the brain to enable brain computer communication.

You’ll own building out the robot test fleet. Break robots into testable components, build rigs that reproduce operating conditions, perform surgeries on brain proxies, and automate accelerated life testing (ALT). Your fleet gives us the evidence to ship new capabilities regularly and safely. When the robot misbehaves, you’re in the lab figuring it out.

What you’ll do

• Bring up, instrument, and run robots and component test rigs.
• Hunt failures across mechanics, electronics, firmware, and software.
• Automate routine robot V&V, test setup, execution, recovery, and results.
• Design and build fixtures, sensing, and logging, with safe operating procedures and fast turnaround.
• Work with Sim and HIL engineers to make the models and tests match reality.
• Turn real failures into repeatable regression tests so we stop burning hardware time on known bugs.

One day you’ll be chasing a failure that happened once, the next you’ll be building systems that run the same way every time. We need someone who can do both and knows which one the day calls for.

Note: The team is hiring engineers at all levels, both junior and senior. What matters most is evidence of exceptional abilities and a drive to succeed.

What we’re looking for

• Hands-on robotics experience. You’ve made a robot work, broken it, and made it work again.
• Enough Python to automate tests and analyze results, and a basic understanding of Rust.
• Hands-on experience with motor drives, encoders, sensors, and hardware interfaces such as Ethernet, SPI, I²C, UART, or EtherCAT.
• Comfortable reading schematics, building instrumented fixtures, and using oscilloscopes, logic analyzers, and data acquisition systems to diagnose failures.
• High agency on hardware, comfortable with noise, intermittent faults, and failures that resist reproduction.
• Discipline about repeatability, traceability, and recording what actually happened.
• Judgment to know when a robot is ready, and the diligence to bring the evidence to back it up.
• Effective at using AI agents to build tooling, analyze data and automate failure investigations.

The anticipated base salary for this position is expected to be within the following range. Your actual base pay will be determined by your job-related skills, experience, and relevant education or training. We also believe in aligning our employees’ success with the company's long-term growth. As such, in addition to base salary, Neuralink offers equity compensation (in the form of Restricted Stock Units (RSU)) for all full-time employees.

Base Salary Range:

$151,000 - $281,000 USD

What We Offer

Full-time employees are eligible for the following benefits listed below.

• An opportunity to change the world and work with some of the smartest and most talented experts from different fields
• Growth potential; we rapidly advance team members who have an outsized impact
• Excellent medical, dental, and vision insurance through a PPO plan
• Paid holidays
• Meals provided
• Equity (RSUs) *Temporary Employees & Interns excluded
• 401(k) plan *Interns initially excluded until they work 1,000 hours
• Parental leave *Temporary Employees & Interns excluded
• Flexible time off *Temporary Employees & Interns excluded