Robotics Software Engineer - World Models at Rethink recruit
San Francisco, CA
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Aug 6, 2026
San Francisco, CA
Sep 24, 2026
What this job asks for AI summary
A stealth-mode humanoid robotics startup is hiring a generalist Robotics Software Engineer to work across its core world-model stack — spanning perception, planning, control, and data infrastructure. The role involves building production-grade software that runs on a fleet of deployed robots, developing data pipelines for model training, and optimizing inference infrastructure. Strong robotics software experience from production environments (not just research) is the key differentiator.
Senior level
“or” means any one of them counts — you don't need all of them.
We read this from the posting text with AI. Skim the description below before ruling yourself out.
How this req sits in the market our data
Rare in this occupation — lead with these, and say what you built with them.
Most people in this occupation already list these. Still required — just not what gets you shortlisted.
What the occupation pays Median $138,970 (middle half $107,524–$175,762).
Estimated from BLS employment for this occupation and area, per-skill prevalence across our listing corpus, and published wage benchmarks — as of Aug 7, 2026. It is a model, not a headcount.
Why we read it this way (4)
The title carries no seniority modifier, but the posting's emphasis on production robotics experience, fleet-scale deployment, and cross-disciplinary ownership is consistent with a Senior-level role.
ROS is listed under requirements with the qualifier 'or equivalent frameworks' — alternatives would include ROS 2 or other robot middleware, but ROS is the only named option.
The alt SOC (15-1299) reflects the genuinely hybrid nature of this role, which sits at the intersection of robotics software engineering and ML/AI systems — neither a pure software developer nor a pure data scientist classification fits cleanly.
No compensation, employment type, or degree requirement is stated in the posting.
Read the full posting
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