Senior Robotics Engineer, Mission Autonomy (AI/Robotics)

Location: Irvine, California, US; onsite

Salary: $180,000–$220,000 per year

Company

hirify.global builds risk-aware, reliable, field-ready AI systems for embodied intelligence and autonomous robots operating in unstructured real-world environments.

What you will do

• Design perception-aware mission autonomy using runtime perception, world information, semantic 3D scene graphs, spatial reasoning, feasibility validation, and online task replanning.
• Build VLM-based mission controllers that interpret camera views and scene graphs, select actions, verify steps, detect failures, recover, and handle feedback for natural-language-driven missions.
• Develop multi-robot autonomy for task allocation, execution monitoring, and coordination across heterogeneous robots.
• Expand robotics testing with unit and integration tests for reliability, safety, and performance.
• Advance autonomous robotic platforms and deliver AI-driven systems for enterprise customers and real-world field deployments.

Requirements

• PhD in Computer Science, Electrical Engineering, Robotics, or a related field.
• Advanced proficiency in Python, C++, ROS/ROS 2, Linux, Git, and Docker.
• 5+ years of experience with AI-driven autonomy software deployed on real robots, including task and motion planning, VLM/LLM-based planners, state machines, or behavior trees.
• Low-level robotic manipulation skills.
• Ability to communicate effectively across teams and lead technical efforts across them.
• Strong problem-solving skills and the ability to navigate complex software systems.
• Strong work ethic, self-motivation, independence, and ability to manage multiple priorities.

Nice to have

• Experience with simulation environments such as Gazebo or Isaac Sim.
• Experience with heterogeneous multi-robot systems, including UGVs, UAVs, and mobile manipulators.
• Experience with LLM/VLM-based long-horizon planning and failure recovery in robotic systems.

Culture & Benefits

• Onsite work in Irvine with direct access to real robots, sensors, and hardware testing.
• Systems are deployed in unstructured, previously unknown environments around the world.
• Collaboration across AI, software, robotics engineering, product, field deployment, and technical communication.
• Work environment focused on creativity, resilience, rigorous engineering, explainability, safety, and dependable field deployment.
• Base pay is determined by role scope, knowledge, skills, experience, and the Irvine market.
• Inclusive workplace with evaluation based on merit, qualifications, and performance.