Robot Platform Engineer - Humanoid (human)

At NEURA Robotics, we are building 4NE1, a cognitive humanoid robot designed to operate safely and autonomously in real-world environments. We are looking for a Robot Platform Engineer to join our Humanoid team and help develop the software foundation that connects hardware, controls, middleware, and applications into a reliable production-ready robotics platform.

This role sits at the intersection of robotics software, embedded systems, distributed systems, middleware, and hardware integration. You will work directly with engineers across locomotion, whole-body control, manipulation, perception, state estimation, and embedded software to ensure the humanoid platform operates reliably on real hardware.

We are looking for a strong C++ software engineer who enjoys working close to the robot, solving system-level challenges, and building robust software infrastructure for complex robotic systems.

Your mission & challenges

Humanoid Platform Integration

• Develop and maintain the software abstraction layer connecting 4NE1 hardware capabilities to NEURA's platform software.
• Integrate actuators, joints, limbs, hands, sensors, safety systems, and robot controllers into a unified software architecture.
• Create and maintain hardware interfaces that expose robot capabilities to control, planning, and application layers.
• Collaborate closely with controls, locomotion, and hardware teams on platform-wide integration.

Middleware & System Integration

• Integrate software components across the humanoid stack, including locomotion, manipulation, whole-body control, state estimation, perception, diagnostics, and robot operations.
• Design and maintain communication pathways between embedded systems, robot software, and higher-level applications.
• Work with DDS-based communication systems and real-time software pipelines.
• Support deployment and integration of robotics middleware frameworks such as ROS 2, Dora, DDS-native architectures, or other distributed robotics systems.
• Collaborate with Middleware Engineers on the broader software platform architecture.

Robot Lifecycle & State Management

• Design and maintain the humanoid operational state machine covering:

BOOT → HOMING → STAND → OPERATIONAL → FAULT → E-STOP → RECOVERY

• Implement transition guards, recovery procedures, timeout handling, and fault escalation mechanisms.
• Ensure safe and predictable robot behavior throughout all operational phases.

Controller & Mode Management

• Develop and maintain software for robot operating modes, including:
• Locomotion
• Standing and balancing
• Manipulation
• Whole-body control
• Gravity compensation
• Service and maintenance modes
• Recovery procedures
• Implement safe controller switching and mode-transition logic.

Robot Bring-Up & Hardware Integration

• Develop software responsible for startup, calibration, homing, and shutdown procedures.
• Integrate sensors, actuators, motor controllers, and embedded subsystems.
• Support robot bring-up and commissioning activities on physical hardware.
• Debug software issues in real-world environments where timing, synchronization, and hardware behavior matter.

Fault Management & Health Monitoring

• Develop watchdog and fault-management mechanisms.
• Implement fault detection, classification, recovery, and escalation logic.
• Build robot-wide health monitoring systems covering:
• Joint and actuator health
• Thermal monitoring
• Controller status
• Communication health
• Sensor availability
• System diagnostics
• Ensure robust and safe robot operation under both expected and unexpected conditions.

Robot API Development

• Develop and maintain gRPC-based robot control services.
• Implement APIs for operational state management, diagnostics, fault handling, telemetry, and robot control.
• Contribute to Protocol Buffer definitions and API evolution together with platform and SDK teams.

Testing & Validation

• Develop platform-level integration tests covering the complete humanoid system.
• Validate software in simulation environments such as MuJoCo and Isaac Sim.
• Support continuous integration and automated testing pipelines.
• Verify functionality on physical 4NE1 robots.

What We Are Looking For

• Bachelor's or Master's degree in Computer Science, Robotics, Electrical Engineering, Software Engineering, Mechatronics, or a related field.
• Strong software engineering skills in modern C++ (C++17 or later).
• Experience working with embedded systems or hardware-near software.
• Strong Linux development experience, including:
• Multi-threaded applications
• Debugging and profiling
• Process and memory management
• Performance optimization
• Experience developing real-time or latency-sensitive applications.
• Experience with DDS-based communication systems such as FastDDS, Cyclone DDS, RTI Connext, or comparable distributed communication frameworks.
• Experience integrating software across complex systems involving hardware, sensors, controllers, and distributed software services.
• Practical experience working with physical robots or robotic hardware platforms, not solely simulation environments.
• Experience bringing up, integrating, troubleshooting, or deploying robotic systems on real hardware.
• Strong understanding of software architecture, system integration, and debugging in complex environments.
• Experience designing and implementing state machines for operational and fault-management workflows.
• Familiarity with gRPC and Protocol Buffers.
• Experience with containerized development environments using Docker, Nix, Podman, or comparable technologies.
• Familiarity with modern software engineering practices, including CI/CD pipelines, dependency management, packaging, and reproducible build environments.
• Familiarity with virtualized or hypervisor-based development environments, including virtual machines, KVM/QEMU, cross-compilation environments, or similar embedded software workflows.
• Strong communication skills and the ability to collaborate effectively across software, controls, electronics, and mechanical engineering teams.

Nice to Have

• Experience with humanoid robots, legged robots, mobile manipulators, or other complex robotic systems.
• Experience with robotics middleware and orchestration frameworks such as:
• ROS 2
• Dora
• Zenoh
• DDS-native systems
• Proprietary robotics platforms
• Familiarity with OROCOS RTT or other hard real-time robotics frameworks.
• Experience integrating software into high-frequency control systems (500 Hz–1 kHz).
• Exposure to locomotion, balancing, whole-body control, manipulation, or state-estimation systems.
• Knowledge of QoS tuning, distributed communication architectures, and robotics middleware performance optimization.
• Experience with safety-critical systems, fault-tree analysis (FTA), FMEA, or safety-oriented software development.
• Familiarity with cross-compilation, embedded Linux, virtualization, and deployment pipelines for robotic products.
• Contributions to open-source robotics software, middleware, infrastructure, or embedded systems projects.