Software Engineer (Platform)

Formulate Robotics; Mountain View (CA); On-site; USD 140,000 - 200,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Equity

Autonomy

AI-enabled development workflows

Job summary

Formulate Robotics is seeking a Software Engineer (Platform) to build the core backend services that orchestrate Gen 3 manufacturing systems. You’ll design APIs, data models, and scalable pipelines that connect machines to the cloud and track production in real time.

You’ll own reliability, observability, and developer experience, working across distributed systems, data flows, and device connectivity while partnering with robotics and product teams to ship measurable platform improvements.

Qualifications

• 3+ years of experience building backend/cloud systems.
• Strong fundamentals in distributed systems, APIs, and data modeling.
• Experience with at least one modern backend language (Rust, Go, Python, TypeScript, Java).
• Comfortable owning services end-to-end: design, implementation, deployment, monitoring, and iteration.
• Strong debugging skills across services, networks, and devices.
• High agency and bias toward action in fast-moving environments.
• AI-native working style; using AI tools to accelerate shipping and quality.

Responsibilities

• Build and maintain backend services and APIs that orchestrate Gen 3 machines and factory workflows.
• Design data models and event flows for production runs, telemetry, quality signals, and auditability.
• Implement secure device-to-cloud connectivity, authentication, and RBAC.
• Build scalable pipelines for ingesting machine telemetry and operational data.
• Own platform reliability: monitoring, alerting, incident response, and postmortems.
• Improve developer velocity: tooling, CI/CD, test infrastructure, and deployment workflows.
• Work closely with robotics/controls/firmware teams to define clean interfaces and protocols.
• Collaborate with Product to translate requirements into shipped features and measurable outcomes.
• Make pragmatic tradeoffs to ship quickly while keeping the system maintainable.

Skills

Distributed systems

APIs

Data modeling

Backend development

Go

Rust

Python

TypeScript

Java

Job description

About The Role

As a Software Engineer (Platform), you'll build the core software services that orchestrate our Gen 3 manufacturing systems. You'll work on the platform that connects machines to the cloud, schedules and tracks production, manages data and workflows, and turns real-world manufacturing into something programmable and continuously improving.

This role is for a builder who likes shipping. You'll work across distributed systems, APIs, data pipelines, device connectivity, and internal tooling. The platform you build will be used every day by real operators running real production - so reliability, observability, and pragmatic engineering matter.

We care less about pedigree and more about high agency. You should be a first-principles thinker, a fast learner, and someone who actively uses modern AI tools to accelerate development, debugging, and iteration.

What You'll Do

• Build and maintain backend services and APIs that orchestrate Gen 3 machines and factory workflows.
• Design data models and event flows for production runs, telemetry, quality signals, and auditability.
• Implement secure device-to-cloud connectivity, authentication, and role-based access control.
• Build scalable pipelines for ingesting machine telemetry and operational data.
• Own platform reliability: monitoring, alerting, incident response, and postmortems.
• Improve developer velocity: tooling, CI/CD, test infrastructure, and deployment workflows.
• Work closely with robotics/controls/firmware teams to define clean interfaces and protocols.
• Collaborate with Product to translate requirements into shipped features and measurable outcomes.
• Make pragmatic tradeoffs to ship quickly while keeping the system maintainable.

What We're Looking For

• 3+ years of experience building backend/cloud systems in production environments.
• Strong fundamentals in distributed systems, APIs, and data modeling.
• Experience with at least one modern backend language (e.g., Rust, Go, Python, TypeScript, Java).
• Comfortable owning services end-to-end: design, implementation, deployment, monitoring, and iteration.
• Strong debugging skills; you can reason about failures across services, networks, and devices.
• High agency and bias toward action in ambiguous, fast-moving environments.
• AI-native working style: you actively leverage AI tools to accelerate shipping and raise quality.
• Nice-to-haves: IoT/device connectivity, event-driven architectures, time-series data, manufacturing systems, ERP/MES concepts.

What We Offer

• Competitive compensation with equity.
• High ownership and autonomy on a core platform that touches every part of the company.
• Opportunity to build software that directly drives real-world manufacturing outcomes.
• Fast-moving team that values builders, perpetual learners, and people who take initiative.
• Modern tooling and support for AI-enabled development workflows.