Founding Robotics Engineer

About the Role

This is a founding engineering role at a pre-seed robotics company building low-cost, teleoperated humanoid platforms that turn physical jobs into remote work. As the Founding Robotics Engineer, you will own the end-to-end design and delivery of the robot — from hardware to software — and shape manufacturing and deployment strategy as the company scales. This is a rare opportunity to define the technical direction of a physical product from day one, with meaningful equity alongside a competitive salary.

What You'll Do

• Architect and build a low-cost teleoperated humanoid robot designed to replace or augment on-site physical roles.

• Deliver the initial wheel-based robot for patient check-in in urgent care clinics — including self-charging and safe navigation — within a Bill of Materials (BOM) under $1,000.

• Solve the human-robot interaction challenge: craft an experience that achieves a patient preference win-rate above 50% compared to in-person staff.

• Deploy and maintain a fleet of 50 robots in clinical environments, targeting a Mean Time Between Failures (MTBF) exceeding 500 hours.

• Ship a contextual AI copilot that provides real-time guidance to remote operators, compressing new-hire training from weeks down to 24 hours — and laying the groundwork for a future physical reasoning model.

What We're Looking For

Required

• 3+ years of hands-on engineering experience with clear ownership of shipped projects.

• Mechatronics & Integration: proven experience building robots from scratch, integrating motors, sensors, actuators, and compute into cohesive, reliable systems.

• Embedded Software & AI: solid firmware development skills and experience deploying ML models on edge systems with real-time, low-latency constraints.

• Rapid Prototyping: expert-level proficiency in CAD, 3D printing, and quick-turn fabrication — from idea to physical prototype in days.

• Design for Manufacturing: designs with cost, assembly time, tolerances, material selection, and scalable production in mind.

• First-Principles Thinking & Radical Ownership: you question assumptions, invent novel solutions, and start solving problems without waiting for permission.

• Strong CS fundamentals supporting both the mechatronics and software sides of robot development.

Nice to Have

• Fleet Management: experience deploying and maintaining robots in clinical or field environments with uptime targets (e.g., MTBF tracking).

• Human-Robot Interaction (HRI) intuition: instinct for what makes robots feel trustworthy vs. unsettling; understanding of the uncanny valley and how to design around it.

• Exposure to healthcare or clinical environments.

• Early-stage startup or founding engineer experience.

Compensation & Benefits

• Salary: $120,000 – $140,000 USD annually

• Equity: meaningful founding equity stake (~1%)

• Visa sponsorship: available

Location

This is an on-site role based in New York, NY. Candidates should be prepared to work in person as part of a small, fast-moving founding team.