Contract Engineer, ROS

You'll build the robotics substrate adapter alongside a lighthouse ROS team. This is the test of whether the core generalizes to a substrate outside our existing expertise, so scope is tight and outcome-driven.

This is a scoped, deliverable-based contract with a path to a full-time role.

A note on location

Remote, with four hours of overlap with Pacific or IST. We don't count hours. We ask for the overlap because this work involves a lot of come look at this bag with me, and that falls apart across a twelve-hour gap.

If you're in Seattle, Toronto or Bengaluru, we'd like to see you in person sometimes. It isn't a condition of the contract.

The bar

• 10+ years of relevant engineering experience.
• ROS 2 in production, including DDS internals (Fast DDS / Cyclone DDS), discovery, and QoS behavior.
• ros2_control, Nav2, or MoveIt.
• Robotics bringup on Jetson / L4T.
• TF2 and multi-sensor time-sync / calibration.
• Proficient in day-to-day work with CLI-based AI coding tools like Claude Code (or an equivalent). It's how the team operates, not a nice-to-have.

What you'll do

• Ingest and reason over robotics artifacts: rosbags (including MCAP), DDS discovery and QoS logs, ros2_control / Nav2 / MoveIt failures.
• Diagnose Jetson / L4T boot and platform issues.
• Handle the spatial and timing layer: TF2, sensor calibration, time synchronization.

Bonus

• Real-time Linux (PREEMPT_RT).
• ros2_tracing / LTTng.
• End-to-end robot bringup done solo.
• Multi-sensor platform integration.

What we offer you

• A front seat as we scale. Customer calls, the roadmap, the pipeline, how the company is actually doing. What you build carries your name on it, and the scope grows faster than the org chart does.
• Top-of-market salary. You're early enough that the ownership is real, not decorative. We'll walk through the full picture on the first call, and this shouldn't be a guessing game.
• AI, all the way down. We use it for everything: writing code, reviewing it, research, ops, internal tooling. Any tool that unblocks you, we buy. If you already work this way, you'll feel at home in a day.
• Your calls to make, from week one. Architecture, tooling, how the work gets done. These aren't consultations here.
• Support while you make them. The founders are hands-on. You own the decision but you don't make it alone.
• A lean team, senior, and kind in a way that's rare at this pace. People share what they know and help before they're asked. It's the part of this job we're proudest of.

What to expect after you apply

• Screening call with Head of People & Business Operations
• Technical conversation with Co-founder/ Head of Engineering
• Technical exercise with Co-founder/ Head of Engineering
• Final conversation with CEO
• References, then offer

In your application, tell us what you'd own here, and the hardest thing you've shipped in this domain.