Staff Robotics Systems Engineer

The Mission

GRAM is a self-replication company creating machine labor for the physical economy.

Our first research frontier is self-preservation: the base case of physical self-replication. We are building a new class of machines called insectoids that can survive, coordinate, and recover without humans. We believe scalable machine labor requires more than single-agent task generality or machines shaped in our image.

About the role

You will own the architecture and integration of the onboard subsystems that let an insectoid sense, compute, communicate, and expose its state. Your scope spans cameras, lidar and ranging sensors, IMUs, encoders, contact and force sensors, compute modules, embedded boards, power and data interfaces, buses, networks, timing, calibration, harness interfaces, and the software pathways connecting them.

This is a hardware-centered role with real software responsibility. You will own subsystem selection, interface compatibility, integration configuration, and measured interaction across onboard sensing, compute, and communications.

What you will do

• Define the onboard sensing, compute, and communications architecture, including sensor coverage, compute placement, network topology, power allocation, and subsystem partitioning.

• Select cameras, lidar and ranging sensors, IMUs, encoders, contact and force sensors, compute modules, and interface devices against field of view, accuracy, rate, latency, bandwidth, power, thermal, environmental, and packaging constraints.

• Define and maintain mechanical, electrical, and software interface contracts across mounts, alignment datums, connectors, pinouts, power rails, buses, network protocols, coordinate frames, data schemas, and configuration parameters.

• Establish end-to-end timing, timestamping, synchronization, latency, bandwidth, and calibration chains across sensing, compute, embedded nodes, and downstream consumers.

• Integrate released boards, sensors, compute, harnesses, mounts, drivers, middleware, configuration, and telemetry into working onboard subsystems, writing C++ or Python integration code where required.

• Diagnose interaction faults such as dropped frames, clock drift, bus saturation, power transients, grounding noise, calibration mismatch, thermal throttling, connector intermittency, and configuration incompatibility.

• Maintain a versioned compatibility and calibration record that connects each subsystem configuration to its firmware, drivers, physical interfaces, measured timing, and known limitations.

Minimum qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in robotics, electrical, computer, mechanical, aerospace engineering, or a related field, or equivalent demonstrated technical ability.

• Integrated a multi-sensor robot, vehicle, aircraft, or comparable embedded machine containing custom hardware and real-time software.

• Selected and integrated cameras, lidar or ranging sensors, IMUs, encoders, force or contact sensing, compute modules, or comparable onboard subsystems using quantitative requirements and interface documentation.

• Proficiency in C++ or Python on Linux, with experience in device integration, structured telemetry, calibration, and at least one real-time bus or network such as CAN, EtherCAT, Ethernet, or SPI.

• Diagnosed a measured hardware-software integration problem involving timing, synchronization, power integrity, communications, calibration, thermal behavior, or mechanical alignment using logs and bench instruments.

Preferred experience

• Multi-camera or lidar systems, hardware timestamping, time synchronization, intrinsic and extrinsic calibration, or sensor-to-compute latency characterization.

• ROS 2, real-time Linux, high-bandwidth sensor pipelines, distributed embedded systems, or resource-constrained onboard compute.

• Reading schematics, harness drawings, mechanical drawings, and datasheets while working with oscilloscopes, logic analyzers, bus analyzers, and data-acquisition equipment.

Compensation

The annual base salary range for this El Segundo position is $180,000–$220,000. An offer within this range will reflect the position's approved scope and the candidate's demonstrated role-relevant skills and experience.

Working at GRAM

This role is based on-site in El Segundo. You will work directly with sensors, boards, compute, harnesses, mounts, and software on benches and assembled machines. The work requires comfort moving between CAD, schematics, network traces, source code, calibration data, and physical instrumentation.

Interview Process

After submitting your application, we review your portfolio and any exceptional work you've shipped. If your application demonstrates the caliber we seek, you'll enter our interview process, which is designed for speed and substance. We aim to complete it within one week from start to finish.

Trust in the Process

GRAM expects deep trust and ownership from its people, and we begin by extending the same to candidates. We treat your information, prior work, and conversations with discretion.