Staff Compute Engineer — Robotics Platform Lead

Apptronik; Sacramento (CA); On-site; USD 210,000 - 235,000; Full time

Job summary

Apptronik is seeking a Staff Compute Engineer to lead the design and implementation of the next-generation compute solution for our humanoid robot platform. You will be the technical lead responsible for architecting a compute solution that meets demanding real-time performance, sensor bandwidth, and functional safety requirements.

You will collaborate with software, electrical, and systems teams, perform performance benchmarking and power analysis, and own the full lifecycle from concept to

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering, or related field; Masters or Ph.D. preferred.
• 10+ years of experience in embedded systems or robotics compute design.

Responsibilities

• Lead architectural design of the robot's next-generation compute solution, from high-level system architecture to component-level selection.
• Define and validate compute requirements based on robotics algorithms, motion control, perception, and AI tasks.
• Develop scalable, high-bandwidth compute capable of handling data from sensors.
• Design for functional safety with redundancy, fail-safe mechanisms, and diagnostic features to meet safety standards.
• Collaborate with software, electrical, and systems engineers for seamless integration.
• Conduct performance benchmarking and power analysis to optimize compute stack for efficiency and thermal management.
• Design, simulate, implement, and test high-speed PCBs for SoMs like NVIDIA Orin.
• Lead high-speed signal integrity and power integrity analysis and validation.
• Qualification of critical components including SoMs, memory, storage, interconnects, and interfaces.
• Develop validation and test plans (DVT/PVT) and ensure regulatory compliance (FCC, CE).
• Stay abreast of embedded systems and RTOS developments to inform future designs.
• Own the lifecycle of complex compute hardware from concept to production release and support.
• Mentor engineers on best practices for hardware design and troubleshooting.

Skills

Robotics compute

Functional safety

Jetson/embedded

RTOS multi-core

Sensor bandwidth

Education

Bachelor's degree in Electrical/Computer Engineering

Tools

NVIDIA Jetson

Ethernet

CAN bus

SoMs/PCIe interfaces

Job description

Apptronik is seeking a Staff Compute Engineer to lead the design and implementation of the next-generation compute solution for our humanoid robot platform. You will be the technical lead responsible for architecting a compute solution that meets demanding real-time performance, sensor bandwidth, and functional safety requirements.

You will collaborate with software, electrical, and systems teams, perform performance benchmarking and power analysis, and own the full lifecycle from concept to