Demo

Robotics Software Engineer

Chef Robotics
San Francisco, CA Full Time
POSTED ON 12/18/2025
AVAILABLE BEFORE 2/17/2026

About Our Team


Chef Robotics is on a mission to accelerate the advent of intelligent machines in the physical world. As the rise of LLMs like ChatGPT has shown, AI has the potential to drive immense change. However, we believe AI’s biggest impact will be in the physical world, given industries like manufacturing, food, and transportation represent 90% of global GDP. We're starting with food, with a goal to put an intelligent robot in every commercial kitchen in the world. We have signed multiple multi-year contracts with various large food companies and we are growing fast. We're backed by investors like Kleiner Perkins, Construct, Bloomberg BETA and Promus Ventures. We have a great team, where you will be surrounded by talented engineers and tech leaders from companies like Cruise, Zoox, Google, Verb Surgical, Tesla, Nuro, Vicarious, Amazon Robotics, Strateos, Built Robotics, Facebook, Plenty, Yelp, and Microsoft.


About the Role


As a Robotics Software Engineer at Chef Robotics, you’ll help shape the future of automation in food production. You'll play a critical role in designing and developing a scalable manipulation system that powers our robots to prepare millions of meals with precision, consistency, and reliability in high-throughput environments.


As a small team, we are focused on building a positive in-office culture. We are looking for individuals who are available to work onsite at the office five days a week and can work start-up-oriented hours.

\n


In this role, you will:
  • Develop classical or ML/RL-based motion planning and manipulation algorithms that work across thousands of different foods with varying physical properties (stickiness, density, viscosity, etc.).
  • Develop novel algorithms to learn ingredient properties on-the-fly and intelligently adapt manipulation parameters.
  • Incorporate new sensor data (e.g., force control, cameras) for trajectory optimization and metrics to measure ingredient manipulation performance.
  • Analyze manipulation performance across ingredients and optimize trajectories for throughput.
  • Contribute to overall software architecture design and standards, including designing interfaces between subsystems.
  • Champion engineering excellence, ensuring high-quality, well-structured, and well-tested code.
  • Stay up-to-date with the latest robotics research and apply insights in a practical way to our system.


What You Bring:
  • BS, MS, or PhD in computer science, robotics, electrical engineering, mechanical engineering, or related field.
  • 5 years of experience in Python and/or C .
  • Experience leading and shipping complex software projects.
  • Understanding both classical and machine/reinforcement learning approaches to robot manipulation, and the tradeoffs between various techniques.
  • Experience with robotic waypoint generation, path planning, and trajectory smoothing.
  • Experience with common deep learning frameworks like Tensorflow or Pytorch.
  • Excellent software engineering fundamentals.
  • Excellent mathematical skills, especially with geometry, probability and statistics, linear algebra, and machine learning.


Bonus Points:
  • Startup experience.
  • You’ve shipped working products under tight deadlines.
  • Robotics research experience, including publications.
  • Experience with trajectory optimization.
  • Experience with the robotics tech stack, e.g., Linux, ROS, OpenCV, CUDA.
  • Experience with calibration, state estimation, and sensor fusion.
  • Experience with basic mechatronics and electronics.


\n
$130,000 - $240,000 a year
Chef is an early-stage startup where equity is a major part of the compensation package. Our salary ranges are determined by role, level, and location. The range displayed on each job posting reflects the minimum and maximum target for new hire salaries for the position. Within the range, individual pay is determined by additional factors, including job-related skills, experience, and relevant education or training.

In addition to salary and early-stage equity, we offer a comprehensive benefits package that includes medical, dental, and vision insurance, commuter benefits, flexible paid time off (PTO), catered lunch, and 401(k) matching.
\n

Equal Opportunity Employer


We are an equal opportunity employer and value diversity at our company. We do not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, color, sex, gender identity and expression, sexual orientation, national origin, ancestry, citizen status, uniform service member and veteran status, marital status, age, pregnancy status, protected medical condition, genetic information, disability, or any other protected status.


Multiple studies have found that a higher percentage of women and BIPOC candidates won't apply if they don't meet every listed qualification. Chef values candidates of all backgrounds. If you find yourself excited by our mission but you don't check every box in the description, we encourage you to apply anyway!

Salary : $130,000 - $240,000

If your compensation planning software is too rigid to deploy winning incentive strategies, it’s time to find an adaptable solution. Compensation Planning
Enhance your organization's compensation strategy with salary data sets that HR and team managers can use to pay your staff right. Surveys & Data Sets

What is the career path for a Robotics Software Engineer?

Sign up to receive alerts about other jobs on the Robotics Software Engineer career path by checking the boxes next to the positions that interest you.
Income Estimation: 
$123,167 - $152,295
Income Estimation: 
$146,673 - $180,130
Income Estimation: 
$131,953 - $159,624
Income Estimation: 
$169,825 - $204,021
Income Estimation: 
$166,631 - $195,636
Income Estimation: 
$162,237 - $199,353
Income Estimation: 
$181,083 - $218,117
Income Estimation: 
$73,784 - $86,677
Income Estimation: 
$90,372 - $103,622
Income Estimation: 
$61,825 - $80,560
Income Estimation: 
$90,032 - $105,965
Income Estimation: 
$85,996 - $102,718
Income Estimation: 
$85,996 - $102,718
Income Estimation: 
$111,859 - $131,446
Income Estimation: 
$110,457 - $133,106
Income Estimation: 
$105,809 - $128,724
Income Estimation: 
$122,763 - $145,698
Income Estimation: 
$105,809 - $128,724
Income Estimation: 
$136,611 - $163,397
Income Estimation: 
$135,163 - $163,519
Income Estimation: 
$131,953 - $159,624
Income Estimation: 
$150,859 - $181,127

Sign up to receive alerts about other jobs with skills like those required for the Robotics Software Engineer.

Click the checkbox next to the jobs that you are interested in.

  • Computer Simulation Skill

    • Income Estimation: $83,633 - $115,564
    • Income Estimation: $88,239 - $107,750
  • Cost Estimation Skill

    • Income Estimation: $80,855 - $109,590
    • Income Estimation: $78,752 - $113,368
View Core, Job Family, and Industry Job Skills and Competency Data for more than 15,000 Job Titles Skills Library

Job openings at Chef Robotics

  • Chef Robotics San Francisco, CA
  • About Our Team Chef Robotics is on a mission to accelerate the advent of intelligent machines in the physical world. As the rise of LLMs like ChatGPT has s... more
  • 15 Days Ago

  • Chef Robotics San Francisco, CA
  • About Our Team Chef Robotics is on a mission to accelerate the advent of intelligent machines in the physical world. As the rise of LLMs like ChatGPT has s... more
  • 4 Days Ago

  • Chef Robotics San Francisco, CA
  • About Our Team Chef Robotics is on a mission to accelerate the advent of intelligent machines in the physical world. As the rise of LLMs like ChatGPT has s... more
  • 1 Day Ago

  • Chef Robotics San Francisco, CA
  • About Our Team Chef Robotics is on a mission to accelerate the advent of intelligent machines in the physical world. As the rise of LLMs like ChatGPT has s... more
  • 11 Days Ago


Not the job you're looking for? Here are some other Robotics Software Engineer jobs in the San Francisco, CA area that may be a better fit.

  • Nimble Robotics San Francisco, CA
  • About Nimble Nimble is a robotics and AI company inventing and scaling autonomous logistics with intelligent robots to enable fast, efficient, and sustaina... more
  • 19 Days Ago

  • Nimble Robotics San Francisco, CA
  • About Nimble Nimble is an AI robotics company building the autonomous supply chain to enable fast, efficient, and sustainable commerce. We’re developing a ... more
  • 27 Days Ago

AI Assistant is available now!

Feel free to start your new journey!