Senior / Staff Software Engineer, Robotics Platform
RoboForce
Milpitas, CA · $165k–$265k a year · Posted November 9, 2026
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Where Milpitas, CA ranks
Where Milpitas, CA placed in our monthly rankings, month by month. Each month stays online at its own address.
November 2026
- #12Best cities for mid-career professionals in the West Coast60% · of 71
- #17Best cities for manufacturing and industrial pay after cost of living$132k · of 35
- #19Best cities for pay after cost of living in California$149k · of 32
- #20Best all-round cities for mid-career professionals in the West Coast46 / 100 · of 39
- #20Best all-round cities for AI careers in the West Coast44 / 100 · of 39
- #21Cities with the most jobs that need no experience in the West Coast0.8% · of 66
Rankings about engineering jobs
- Best cities for software and engineering jobs #1 San Francisco (3,412 openings)
- Best cities for engineering pay after cost of living #1 San Mateo ($216k)
- Most requested AI skills in engineering jobs #1 AI tools in daily work (6.1%)
- AI tools named most often in engineering jobs #1 Claude (1.7%)
- Employers with the most engineering jobs #1 Amazon (2,992 roles)
Pay compared with the market
This listing pays about $215,000 a year. Across 116 open senior listings that state pay, the middle half runs $166,000 to $240,000 and the median is $199,000. That is inside the middle half of those listings, 8% above the median.
Listed pay is what employers advertise, not what people are paid.
How AI is used in this kind of work
Among software developers, AI is already used for some of the tasks. Measured exposure for software developers: 29% (some).
Share of this job’s tasks that AI is already used for at work, from real usage. It is not a forecast of job loss, and a low number means no use seen yet. Source: Anthropic Economic Index.
Skills this job asks for
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About the job
Why RoboForce
RoboForce is an AI robotics company developing Physical AI–powered Robo-Labor for dull, dirty, and dangerous work. The company’s robots are engineered for demanding industrial environments, with a focus on real-world deployment and scalability.
We are hiring Senior / Staff Software Engineers to build the foundations that make our robots useful, reliable and maintainable. The work spans software interfaces, on-robot systems, fleet services and engineering tools, connecting capabilities on the robot with the people and systems that use them.
We welcome depth in one or more of these areas. Your initial ownership will reflect your strengths and the team's priorities, with opportunities to contribute across adjacent areas as our systems evolve. You will stay close to implementation, work with engineers across software and hardware, and see your decisions operate on real robots.
Responsibilities
Depending on your experience and agreed ownership, your work may include:
Software Architecture & Interfaces: Design and implement shared libraries and clear contracts for commands, state, execution and compatibility across robot capabilities, along with reference clients, examples and documentation that let other engineers use them.
Robot Systems & Runtime: Build reliable computing and runtime foundations, including target builds, configuration, startup, readiness, hardware integration and recovery.
Fleet & Data Services: Develop services for robot health, telemetry, incident evidence, recording access and software delivery visibility across unreliable networks.
Developer Workflows: Create tools and infrastructure that make integration, deployment, diagnosis and validation more repeatable and efficient.
End-to-End Engineering: Take a substantial workstream from design and implementation through integration, deployment, investigation and improvement.
Verification & Reliability: Use tests, traces and operational evidence to understand behavior and validate changes, including AI-assisted implementation.
Technical Collaboration: Work across component boundaries, communicate trade-offs and help other engineers build on your work. At Staff level, lead cross-team architecture, migration and adoption.
Requirements
Education: BS or MS in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, Robotics or a related field, or equivalent practical experience.
Software Engineering: Strong production programming, design and debugging skills in languages relevant to your area, such as C++, Python, Go or comparable languages.
Relevant Depth: Substantial experience in at least one of shared software interfaces, Linux/embedded systems, backend/distributed services, connected-device platforms or developer infrastructure.
Delivered Systems: Experience shipping and maintaining software used by other engineers or users, with clear ownership of implementation and results.
Systems Reasoning: Ability to reason about state, asynchronous execution, failures, interfaces and meaningful verification.
Collaboration & Adaptability: Ability to work across disciplines, clarify unfamiliar assumptions and learn new systems through practical engineering.
Level of Ownership: Senior candidates should demonstrate independent ownership of substantial workstreams. Staff candidates should also demonstrate architectural impact across components and owners, hands-on delivery and successful adoption.
Requires 5 days/week in-office collaboration with the teams.
Bonus Qualifications
Experience in any of the following is valuable; no candidate is expected to cover every area:
Robotics, autonomy or other hardware-integrated products, including ROS 2 or comparable middleware.
Embedded computing, target toolchains, runtime lifecycle or on-device deployment and recovery.
Stateful APIs, reusable client libraries, software compatibility or interface migration.
Device telemetry, reliable data delivery, observability, recording pipelines or fleet operations.
CI, hardware automation, developer tools or reproducible release workflows.
Benefits
Competitive stock options/equity programs.
Health, dental, and vision insurance, 401(k) plan.
Visa sponsorship and green card support for qualified candidates.
Lunches and dinners, a fully stocked kitchen, and regular team-building events.
Compensation: Salary $165,000–$265,000 USD + Bonus + Equity
The base salary range above represents the expected compensation for this full-time U.S. position. Final compensation will be determined based on role scope, level, location, job-related skills, experience, and relevant education or training, and may fall outside the listed range in exceptional cases.