Software Engineer, Robotics

TAR; San Francisco (CA); Hybrid; USD 140,000 - 190,000; Full time

Job summary

TAR is building the world’s first off-grid power plant for data centers powered by renewables. As a Software Engineer on the robotics team in San Francisco, you’ll own software spanning middleware to fleet coordination, running on real hardware outdoors and traveling to deployment sites as needed.

You will ship production robotics software, work across perception, planning, and controls, and support field deployment with robust offline operation and real-time performance.

Qualifications

• Professional experience building software for robotic or autonomous systems.
• Track record shipping production robotics software on real hardware.
• Expertise across the autonomy stack, from fast prototypes to production code in a systems language (C, C++, or Rust).
• Experience building for real-time and resource-constrained environments.
• Ability to take a system a long way independently, from architecture through field deployment.
• High ownership, bias for speed, and comfort with ambiguity.

Responsibilities

• Write software across the autonomy stack for prototype and production robots: perception, state estimation, localization, motion planning, and controls.
• Implement task and motion planning with centimeter tolerances at construction pace.
• Build fleet layer: task allocation, coordination, and deconfliction across machines at a site.
• Stand up simulation and CI; build logging, telemetry, and data pipelines for debugging.
• Build operator-facing tooling for teleoperation, supervision, and diagnostics used daily.
• Ship software that runs offline and degrades gracefully at remote sites with limited connectivity.
• Go to the field, debug on the machine, and close the sim-to-real loop with mechanical and electrical teams.

Skills

Robotics software

Production robotics experience

Autonomy stack

Real-time systems

Field deployment

Ownership

Job description

TAR’s mission is to power intelligence for the world. We are building the world’s first off-grid power plant for data centers powered by renewable technologies.

We firmly believe AI should be built in the US for the benefit of all people. For that, power must be fast, clean and scalable. We are singularly focused on delivering GW-scale power faster than anyone has ever done, by rethinking every layer of the stack.

We vertically integrate to solve every bottleneck, from racking systems to power electronics to dispatch algorithms to on-site construction.

Leave your mark on the future of civilization-scale energy infrastructure.

Company

TAR is both a hardware and software company, we are building out massive, critical, physical infrastructure. TAR is working directly with one of the largest compute providers to scale and deploy 5GWs by 2028.

• High ownership. High Agency. Own project end-to-end. Great people don’t need to be managed.
• Speed. We achieve great things on incredible timelines. We push ourselves to go faster.
• First principles. No ego. No hierarchy. Challenge every assumption.
• Passion. Solving the energy problem is one of the largest challenges that faces the world now and in the future.

About the role

As a Software Engineer on the robotics team, you own the software that makes those machines autonomous: middleware, perception, localization, planning, and control on the machine, and the fleet layer that coordinates dozens of them working the same site at once. This is a mid to senior level individual contributor role based at our San Francisco robotics facility. Your code runs on real hardware, outdoors, and you will travel to deployment sites as-needed and be there when it does.

Responsibilities

• Write software across the autonomy stack for prototype and production robots: perception, state estimation, localization, motion planning, and controls.
• Implement task and motion planning that places physical assets with centimeter tolerances at construction pace.
• Build the fleet layer: task allocation, coordination, and deconfliction across multiple machines operating on an active construction site.
• Stand up simulation and CI so changes are validated before they reach a machine, and build the logging, telemetry, and data pipelines to debug what happens when they do.
• Build the operator-facing tooling for teleoperation, supervision, and diagnostics that field crews depend on daily.
• Ship software that runs offline and degrades gracefully at remote sites with limited connectivity.
• Go to the field, debug on the machine, and close the sim-to-real loop with the mechanical and electrical teams.

Qualifications

• Professional experience building software for robotic or autonomous systems.
• Track record shipping production robotics software on real, deployed hardware, not solely research or lab work.
• Expertise across the autonomy stack, from fast prototypes to production code in a systems programming language such as C, C++, or Rust.
• Experience building for real-time and resource-constrained environments.
• Ability to take a system a long way independently, from architecture through field deployment.
• High ownership, bias for speed, and comfort with ambiguity.

Nice to have

• 2+ years of professional Rust experience in a real time, safety-critical environment.
• Outdoor, off-road, heavy-industry, or construction autonomy.
• GNSS/RTK, SLAM, or large-scale outdoor localization.
• Multi-robot coordination and fleet management.
• Deep expertise in one or more of perception, state estimation and sensor fusion, motion planning, or controls; or a strong generalist who ships features across the entire stack.