Staff Software Engineer - Robotics Platform

Gravis Robotics is a high-growth Series A start-up backed by SoftBank, bringing Physical AI to the construction industry, turning heavy construction machines into autonomous robots. 

Gravis began as an ETH Zurich spin-out, and our unique combination of learning-based automation and augmented remote control lets one operator safely conduct a fleet of earthmoving machines in a gamified environment. 

Backed by deep robotics research and now deployed across multiple countries with leading construction and equipment partners, our team is rapidly growing to bring this technology to a trillion-dollar industry. 

The Gravis RACK is a machine-agnostic retrofit kit that adds autonomy to excavators and wheel loaders from 10 to 100+ tonnes: LiDAR and camera sensing, GNSS RTK, networking hardware and rugged edge compute that works offline. Paired with the Slate tablet and our Copilot software, it lets an operator run a machine manually, with AI assistance, or fully autonomously.  

About the Job

At Gravis, we build high tech systems that give machine operators superhuman capabilities. To adapt in real time to changes in the environment the Gravis Rack fuses data from LiDAR, cameras, GNSS, and hydraulics into an autonomous control system. The robotics platform team builds the software foundation for our robots to enable non stop operation in the harshest environments. We ensure all algorithms execute correctly, based on a rock solid communication layer and world class introspection capabilities. We provide all the tools to deploy, develop and debug the most powerful robots on earth.

As a robotics platform staff software engineer, you will help shape and implement our vision of a scalable, safe and high performing robotics platform. You will  gather requirements from internal customers, architect the communication layer, node orchestration and lifecycle management as well as APIs to off-machine systems. The main focus will be on the design, implementation and maintenance of essential parts of the on-robot platform, contributing to open source projects where feasible. With your outstanding skills, you will be a role model for other developers in our organisation and guide them on their professional journey. 

What you'll do

• Collaborate closely with engineers from other teams  to derive requirements and help shape the vision of our robotics platform 

• Derive roadmaps towards our vision, incorporating business needs and handling conflicting timelines and requirements

• Design, build and maintain parts of the robotics platform, e.g. health monitoring and machine configuration management. Guide junior team members to support your endeavors

• Monitor external dependencies and alternatives to assess potential issues or improvements

• Influence, nurture and grow our engineering culture

• Contribute upstream to open source software projects to close gaps in required functionality

• Engage in the robotics scene to stay up to date with ongoing developments and share knowledge in and outside of our company 

What we're looking for

• Bachelor's or Master's degree in Computer Science, Electrical Engineering, or a related field

• 7+ years of hands-on experience in Software Engineering, Robotics Development or similar roles

• Strong Software Engineering skills and solid experience with related tooling (e.g. clangd, cargo, pyrefly)

• Strong programming skills in a systems language like C++ or Rust, Python is nice to have

• Track record of leading high impact projects across teams 

• Experience with middleware (iceoryx2, DDS, AUTOSAR Adaptive) and IDLs (FlatBuffers, Protobuf)

Bonus Qualifications

Don't meet every requirement? We still want to hear from you. These are nice-to-haves, not dealbreakers:

• Experience working on safety-critical systems and the respective software development processes

• Experience in developing a production grade robotics system

• Track record of open source contributions

• Experience using Rust in a production environment

Gravis is an equal opportunity employer. We are committed to building an inclusive and diverse team, and do not discriminate based on race, colour, ancestry, national origin, religion, sex, sexual orientation, age, gender identity, gender expression, disability, veteran status, or other legally protected characteristics.