Staff Software Engineer, Technical Lead - San Francisco - Chef Robotics

    Chef Robotics
    Chef Robotics San Francisco

    3 hours ago

    Description

    Staff Software Engineer

    Chef Robotics is on a mission to accelerate the advent of intelligent machines in the physical world. We're starting with food, with a goal to put an intelligent robot in every commercial kitchen in the world. We're backed by investors like Kleiner Perkins, Construct, Bloomberg BETA and Promus Ventures. We have a great team, where you will be surrounded by talented engineers and tech leaders from companies like Cruise, Zoox, Google, Verb Surgical, Tesla, Nuro, Vicarious, Amazon Robotics, Strateos, Built Robotics, Facebook, Plenty, Yelp, and Microsoft.

    About the Role

    We're seeking a Staff Software Engineer to provide hands-on technical leadership for the core software platform that powers our production robotic systems. This role owns the on-robot software stack end to end, from Linux-based platform software and robotics middleware through fleet management, deployment, and cloud connectivity. You'll work across software and data engineering, partnering closely with Autonomy, Hardware, Product, and Field Operations to deliver production-ready robotic systems for Tier 1 food production customers.

    Technical Architecture & Platform Leadership

    • Define and evolve the architecture for on-robot software, including OS configuration, hardware abstraction, middleware, and system services
    • Lead middleware architecture decisions for real-time robot control, sensor integration, and inter-process communication
    • Establish patterns for full-stack development, connecting on-robot systems to cloud services and web interfaces

    Hands-On Engineering

    • Write production code for high-impact features across the stack: robotics middleware, backend services, and cloud infrastructure
    • Lead critical technical initiatives, including robotic platform software, cloud data pipelines, and fleet management platform
    • Build robust deployment, monitoring, and OTA update systems for production robot fleets
    • Debug the most challenging issues from kernel/driver level through the application layer

    Engineering Excellence & Mentorship

    • Establish engineering standards and processes that balance rigor with startup agility
    • Champion reliability, observability, and testing practices across embedded and cloud systems
    • Mentor engineers through code reviews, design discussions, and pairing sessions
    • Collaborate with Hardware and Autonomy teams on system integration and performance optimization
    • Build and maintain internal and developer tooling that acts as a force multiplier across the organization

    Required Qualification

    • 8+ years of software engineering with 3+ years in technical leadership roles
    • Track record delivering production robotic systems, IoT devices, or autonomous systems at scale
    • Experience designing reliable systems for B2B/enterprise deployments
    • On-device platform expertise: OS configuration, device drivers, system services, networking stack configuration
    • Robotics middleware: ROS/ROS2, real-time systems, sensor integration
    • Infrastructure: Containerization (Docker/K8s), CI/CD pipelines, monitoring/observability

    Nice to Have

    • Collaborative robots (Universal Robots UR5E or similar cobots)
    • Over-the-air update systems and remote device management at scale
    • Background in manufacturing/production environments
    • Track record at high-growth hardware/robotics startups
    • Cloud experience: AWS/GCP/Azure
    • Full-stack development: Backend services (Python/C++), APIs, database design, web interfaces

    $140,000 - $240,000 a year

    Chef is an early-stage startup where equity is a major part of the compensation package. As the company secures more capital, we will gradually increase salary and cash compensation. The starting salary will depend on seniority. In addition to salary and early-stage equity, we offer a comprehensive benefits package that includes medical, dental, and vision insurance, commuter benefits, flexible paid time off (PTO), catered lunch, and 401(k) matching.

    Equal Opportunity Employer

    We are an equal opportunity employer and value diversity at our company. We do not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, color, sex, gender identity and expression, sexual orientation, national origin, ancestry, citizen status, uniform service member and veteran status, marital status, age, pregnancy status, protected medical condition, genetic information, disability, or any other protected status. Multiple studies have found that a higher percentage of women and BIPOC candidates won't apply if they don't meet every listed qualification. Chef values candidates of all backgrounds. If you find yourself excited by our mission but you don't check every box in the description, we encourage you to apply anyway

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