Robotics Software Systems Engineer- Arlington, VA (Hybrid)

Robotics Software Systems Engineer

Location: Hybrid (3 days onsite in Arlington / 2 days remote)

Compensation: Highly competitive and including significant equity in the company. Our client is committed to working with exceptional candidates to meet compensation goals when there is a fit.

About Our Client

Our client is a venture-backed maritime technology companyfocused on advancing maritime domain awareness and improving safety on the seas.

The company develops robotic AI-powered sensing platforms deployed on vessels worldwide, delivering unprecedented insight into maritime environments through advanced sensor fusion and edge computing.

Headquartered in Washington, D.C., the organization operates as a team with staff across the United States. The culture is mission-driven and fast moving, with teams collaborating across time zones and operating at an incredible pace in demanding real-world environments.

Company snapshot:

• ~55 full-time employees
• Tens of millions in revenue and growing rapidly
• Global deployments across maritime environments

Why This Opportunity

This role offers the chance to help build a cutting-edge robotics sensing platform deployed globally across maritime environments.

You will work on systems that combine AI, robotics, infrared sensing, and distributed edge computing to deliver real-world operational impact. Engineers in this role contribute directly to technology operating in mission-critical environments where reliability, autonomy, and performance matter.

It is an opportunity to join a rapidly scaling team building advanced sensing infrastructure that enables better awareness, safety, and decision-making across the world’s oceans.

Role Overview

Our client is seeking a Robotics Software Systems Engineer to develop and maintain the software infrastructure behind a distributed edge sensing platform deployed across maritime environments.

This role sits at the intersection of robotics, real-time sensing, and distributed systems . Engineers in this position design software that coordinates multiple onboard sensors including infrared imaging systems (FLIR and similar), optical cameras, GPS, IMUs, radar, SDRs, and subsea acoustic sensors.

A major focus of the role is developing reliable systems for infrared sensing and thermal imaging, enabling detection and tracking capabilities in low-light, nighttime, and adverse maritime conditions.

You will work across the stack, from hardware-near ROS development to cloud messaging pipelines, ensuring that sensing systems collect, process, and transmit high-value data reliably even in remote environments with constrained bandwidth.

This role is ideal for engineers who enjoy building real-world robotic systems that must operate autonomously and reliably in harsh environments.

What You Will Do

• Design and maintain core system software responsible for sensor control, data acquisition, and stream management across multiple sensing platforms.
• Develop and optimize software for infrared imaging systems (FLIR and similar) including sensor integration, calibration, and data capture pipelines.
• Build robotics control software for camera systems, stabilization, and automated tracking functions.
• Enhance inter-process communication frameworks using ROS2.
• Integrate and synchronize data inputs from infrared cameras, optical cameras, GPS, IMU, radar, lidar, acoustic sensors, and additional sensing technologies.
• Optimize data transmission pipelines to ensure reliable artifact delivery over constrained bandwidth connections such as satellite uplinks.
• Implement compression, serialization, and networking strategies to support long-range deployments.
• Develop and maintain software modules for the configuration and management of edge devices including SDRs, cameras, and sensing hardware.
• Collaborate with AI and backend teams to define data schemas, delivery pipelines, and observability frameworks for monitoring sensor and model performance.
• Build tools for local testing, diagnostics, and monitoring of deployed systems in the field.
• Improve system reliability, logging, and performance to support long-duration autonomous deployments.

What Our Client Is Looking For

• Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in Robotics, Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering, or a related field.
• 4 years of experience developing production-quality robotics, embedded systems, or distributed software, ideally with some of that being at a startup.
• Strong programming experience in Python and C.
• Extensive development experience in Linux environments.
• Hands-on experience working with infrared sensing systems such as FLIR or similar thermal imaging platforms.
• Experience integrating sensor systems including GPS, IMU, radar, lidar, cameras, or acoustic sensors.
• Experience with ROS2 or comparable robotics middleware frameworks.
• Solid understanding of networking, message serialization, compression, and communication over constrained bandwidth links.
• Experience building software for systems deployed in remote or field environments with intermittent connectivity.
• Strong debugging, testing, and documentation practices for distributed systems.

Nice to Have

• Experience with software-defined radio (SDR) systems.
• Background in maritime, aerospace, or defense robotics deployments.
• Experience developing high-reliability IoT or edge-compute platforms.
• Experience with real-time video processing or computer vision pipelines involving thermal or infrared imaging.