Senior Robotics Data Systems Engineer

Socket.dev; Santa Clara (CA); On-site; USD 210,000 - 250,000; Full time

Job summary

Socket.dev is seeking a Senior Software Engineer to own the systems powering a large-scale data collection operation, including the collection platform, operator tooling, data pipeline, and fleet infrastructure. You will direct an operator team and build what they run, owning the output and ensuring uptime.

You will design and ship software for real robot systems with ROS 2 or similar middleware, Python, Linux, Docker, and CI tooling.

Qualifications

• MS in CS, Robotics, EE/ME, or BS with equivalent hands-on experience.
• 3+ years building software for real robot systems.
• A system you designed and shipped that others depended on daily.
• Strong Python and Linux; Docker, git, CI, and SSH-based fleet administration.
• Experience with ROS 2 or equivalent robot middleware SDKs.

Responsibilities

• Design, build, and maintain the software behind data collection stations — teleoperation stack, multi-camera recording, and session tooling.
• Deploy and upgrade that stack across the fleet without stopping collection; keep workstations, containers, and networking healthy.
• Own the data pipeline end to end: automated validation, conversion into our dataset format, upload, metadata, and versioning.
• Build the QA tooling that catches dropped frames, stream desync, bad calibration, and mislabeled episodes before data reaches training.
• Direct a team of teleoperators — define task protocols and SOPs, onboard them on new tasks and embodiments, review session quality, and unblock them daily.
• Own fleet reliability: calibration and firmware pipelines, sensor and end-effector integration, root-cause analysis of recurring faults, and vendor escalation.
• Bring up new stations and new embodiments; report throughput, yield, and data health to the research team.

Skills

Python

Linux

ROS 2

Docker

Git

CI

Teleoperation tooling

Team leadership without authority

Education

MS in CS/Robotics/EE/ME or BS with equivalent hands-on

Tools

Robot middleware SDKs

Job description

Socket.dev is seeking a Senior Software Engineer to own the systems powering a large-scale data collection operation, including the collection platform, operator tooling, data pipeline, and fleet infrastructure. You will direct an operator team and build what they run, owning the output and ensuring uptime.

You will design and ship software for real robot systems with ROS 2 or similar middleware, Python, Linux, Docker, and CI tooling.