Senior Robotics Engineer in Bristol

Job Title

Senior Robotics Engineer

Department

Robotics Software Engineering

The Senior Robotics Engineer will own critical parts of the robot software stack and deliver reliable capability on hardware, working across controls, planning, state estimation, integration and deployment to solve the practical system-level problems that determine whether a robot performs consistently outside the lab.

Key Duties/Responsibilities

• Robotics Software Development
• Design, implement and maintain production-quality robotics software for humanoid and mobile-manipulation systems.
• Develop and integrate motion planning, trajectory generation, whole-body control, manipulation, state estimation and robot coordination components.
• Hardware Bring-Up & Integration
• Bring up new hardware and capabilities, integrating actuators, sensors, compute, communications and safety systems into a coherent robot platform.
• Create robust interfaces between classical robotics, learned policies, perception and product-level task execution.
• Real-Time Systems Engineering
• Build real-time and near-real-time systems with clear performance budgets for latency, frequency, determinism and resource use.
• Problem Solving & Troubleshooting
• Diagnose difficult system failures across software, controls, electronics, mechanics, calibration and networking using evidence and disciplined root-cause analysis.
• Testing & Reliability
• Develop simulation, hardware-in-the-loop and on-robot tests; establish regression coverage and release criteria for new robot capabilities.
• Improve reliability, observability, fault handling, recovery and safe degradation for robots operating in pilot environments.
• Technical Leadership & Collaboration
• Lead substantial technical projects from design through integration and field validation; write clear design documentation and make sound architecture trade-offs.
• Mentor engineers and collaborate closely with hardware, AI, perception, product and field operations teams.
• Performs other duties or takes on specialized responsibilities as assigned.

Supervisory Responsibilities

• None

Required Skills/Abilities/Qualifications

• Strong professional experience building software for physical robots or complex autonomous systems, including substantial hands-on hardware integration.
• Excellent modern C++ and Python skills, with a high bar for code quality, testing, debugging and maintainability.
• Deep practical knowledge in several relevant areas such as kinematics, dynamics, control, motion planning, manipulation, state estimation, calibration or sensor fusion.
• Experience with ROS/ROS 2 and the surrounding robotics development, visualisation, logging and deployment ecosystem.
• Understanding of real-time systems, concurrency, networking and Linux-based robot compute environments.
• Ability to reason about the whole system and isolate faults that cross software and hardware boundaries.
• Track record of independently leading technically ambiguous work through integration and on-robot validation.
• Strong collaboration and communication across software, mechanical, electrical, AI and operational disciplines.

Preferred Skills/Abilities/Qualifications

• Humanoid robots, legged systems, dual-arm manipulation or contact-rich whole-body behaviours.
• Torque, impedance or model-predictive control; optimisation-based planning; collision checking and trajectory optimisation.
• Real-time Linux, Ether CAT, CAN, DDS or other robot communications and fieldbus technologies.
• Simulation and digital-twin platforms such as Mu Jo Co, Isaac Sim, Drake, Gazebo or equivalent tools.
• Functional safety concepts, hazard analysis, runtime monitoring and safe-state design for autonomous machines.
• CI/CD for robotics, fleet software release, remote diagnostics and field observability.
• Deploying and supporting robots in customer or pilot environments.

Education/Experience

• A Ph D or degree in robotics, computer science, electrical or mechanical engineering, or equivalent practical experience.
• At least three years' relevant work experience.

Physical Requirements

The physical demands described here are representative of those that must be met by an employee to successfully perform the essential functions of this job.

Reasonable accommodations may be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform the essential functions.

• Prolonged periods of sitting/standing at a desk and working on a computer. The employee routinely is required to sit; stand, walk; talk and hear; use hands to keyboard.
• Specific vision abilities required by this job include close vision, color vision, peripheral vision, depth perception, and ability to adjust focus.
• Ability to lift 30 lbs.
• Occasional travel to partner or pilot sites may be required.

Bear Robotics, Inc. is proud to be an Equal Opportunity Employer.

We do not discriminate on the basis of race, color, ancestry, national origin, religion or religious creed, mental or physical disability, medical condition, genetic information, sex (including pregnancy, childbirth, and related medical conditions), sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, age, marital status, military or veteran status, citizenship, or other characteristics protected by state or federal law or local ordinance.