T
Talent@ Beta
Chef Robotics

Staff Software Engineer, Technical Lead

Chef Robotics · Series A · Website
Apply Now Refer a Friend

Role Details

Location
San Francisco
Salary
~$153K - $238K (est. USD)
Department
Software
Type
Full-time
Vertical
Robotics
Posted
1 week ago

Job Description

Chef Robotics is accelerating the deployment of intelligent machines in the physical world, starting with food production—a sector facing the largest labor shortage in the U.S., with 1.14M unfilled jobs today and 3.1M projected by 2030. These roles cannot be offshored, making robotics essential to keeping production onshore and strengthening America’s manufacturing base. Backed by investors like Kleiner Perkins, Construct, Bloomberg Beta, and Promus Ventures, and supported by a world-class team from companies such as Cruise, Zoox, Google, Tesla, and Amazon Robotics, Chef is rapidly scaling with multiple multi-year contracts and a mission to put an intelligent robot in every commercial kitchen.



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

    • About Chef Robotics

    AI-powered food assembly robots for commercial kitchens via Robotics-as-a-Service.

    View company profile

    Similar roles at other companies

    Member of Technical Staff, Software Engineer
    Fireworks Ai · Series C · New York
    Senior Software Engineer
    Unit Labs · Seed
    Software Engineer
    Virtuals Protocol · Seed
    Software Engineer - Compliance
    Rain · Series C · New York, NY
    Senior Software Engineer, Custody & Staking
    Galaxy Digital · Public · New York
    Senior Software Engineer, i
    Pika · Series B · Palo Alto HQ
    Apply for this role Refer a Friend

    You'll be redirected to the company's application page

    Get roles like this daily

    Join our Telegram channels for curated job alerts

    Talent@Web3 Talent@AI Talent@Robotics