Senior/Staff Software Engineer, Robotics Platform

Field AI; Irvine (CA); On-site; USD 180,000 - 240,000; Full time

Job summary

FieldAI's Irvine team builds risk-aware, field-ready AI systems for embodied robotics, integrating real sensors, hardware, and deployments. You will contribute to software platforms that run across diverse robots and hardware configurations, enabling reliable, scalable autonomy in real-world environments.

As a founding member of the Robotics Platform team, you’ll help define architecture, interfaces, and runtime systems that keep the autonomy stack portable while delivering the performance and

Job description

FieldAI's Irvine team is where embodied AI meets real robots, real sensors, and real field deployments. Based in the heart of Southern California's robotics ecosystem, we build risk-aware, reliable, field-ready AI systems that solve the hardest problems in robotics and unlock the full potential of embodied intelligence. If you want your work to ship, get tested on hardware, and improve through real deployments, Irvine is the place. We go beyond typical data-driven approaches or pure transformer-only architectures, combining rigorous engineering with learning systems proven in globally deployed solutions that deliver results today and get better every time our robots run in the field.

We’re building the software platform that enables FieldAI’s foundation models to run reliably and efficiently across a growing range of robots, hardware configurations, and real-world applications. As a founding member of the Robotics Platform team, you’ll help define the architecture, interfaces, and runtime systems that make our autonomy stack portable across embodiments while delivering the performance and reliability required for deployment in the physical world.

This role sits at the intersection of robotics, distributed systems, middleware, and performance engineering. You’ll work across the full system—from APIs and subsystem boundaries to communication middleware, runtime execution, simulation, and deployment on real hardware—solving the foundational problems that allow autonomy teams to move faster without coupling themselves to a particular robot or hardware stack.

A key part of the role is defining how robots describe themselves to the rest of the system. You’ll design the models and interfaces used to represent robot capabilities, current state, and intent so that dashboards, autonomous agents, fleet-management systems, and other services can reason consistently about what a robot can do, what it is doing, and what actions are valid. These abstractions need to remain useful as robots gain new sensors, behaviors, embodiments, and autonomy capabilities.

At the same time, you’ll tackle the systems challenges of making sophisticated robot intelligence practical at the edge: designing clean abstractions without sacrificing performance, moving large amounts of data efficiently through constrained systems, understanding latency and reliability end to end, and building infrastructure that behaves predictably outside the lab.

You’ll have significant influence over the technical direction of the platform and will work closely with autonomy, hardware, simulation, infrastructure, product, and deployment teams to turn cross-cutting requirements into durable systems and interfaces. The systems you build will directly determine how quickly FieldAI can bring its intelligence to new robots, integrate with fleet and operational tooling, and deploy new applications in the real world.

Our salary range is generous and we consider each individual’s background and experience when determining final compensation. Base pay may vary based on role scope, job-related knowledge, skills, experience, and the Irvine, California market.

Why Join FieldAI in Irvine?

In Irvine, you will work where the robots are. Our local team builds and tests systems on real hardware with real sensors, then ships them to operate in unstructured, previously unknown environments around the world. We are solving one of robotics’ hardest challenges: reliable deployment outside the lab. Our Field Foundational Models™ raise the bar for perception, planning, localization, and manipulation, with an emphasis on explainability and safety for real-world use.

You will collaborate with a world-class team that thrives on creativity, resilience, and bold thinking. We bring deep experience from organizations such as DeepMind, NASA JPL, Boston Dynamics, NVIDIA, Amazon, Tesla Autopilot, Cruise, Zoox, Toyota Research Institute, and SpaceX, along with a track record of field deployments and strong performance in DARPA challenge segments.

Be Part of the Next Robotics Revolution

We are looking for builders who want their work to leave the whiteboard and show up on robots. If you enjoy tackling tough, uncharted questions and working across disciplines, you will find your people here. Our teams span AI, software, robotics engineering, product, field deployment, and technical communication, all focused on shipping systems that perform in the real world.

Our headquarters is in Irvine, and we partner closely with teams there as well as colleagues across the US and around the world. Join us in Southern California and help define what dependable, field-ready autonomy looks like.

We value diverse perspectives and are committed to fostering an inclusive workplace. We evaluate candidates and employees based on merit, qualifications, and performance, and we do not discriminate on the basis of race, color, gender, national origin, ethnicity, veteran status, disability status, age, sexual orientation, gender identity, marital status, or any other legally protected status.