What are the responsibilities and job description for the Senior Robotics Software Engineer position at silana?
Location: New York, NY (in-person, with flexibility)
About Silana
Silana is building fully automated robotic sewing systems. Our technology combines robotics, machine vision, and industrial automation to transform how garments are manufactured. We’re a deep-tech company solving some of the hardest problems in robotics - handling deformable materials, real-time perception, and scalable automation.
We’re looking for a Senior Robotics Software Engineer who lives and breathes robotics, loves writing clean, robust code, and wants to architect the software backbone that powers production-ready robotic machines.
What You'll Do
- Own the ROS 2 system architecture across all subsystems (motion, vision, PLCs, and custom hardware).
- Design and implement scalable, modular ROS 2 packages with clean interfaces, launch files, and lifecycle management.
- Define and maintain integration between ROS 2, PLCs, and vision systems (e.g., OPC-UA, Modbus, custom drivers).
- Build the deployment layer: containerization, CI/CD pipelines, logging, monitoring, and automated bring-up.
- Select and configure industrial compute hardware (IPC/GPU, networking, storage) for reliable customer deployments.
- Write high-quality, testable C /Python code that sets the standard for the team.
- Collaborate closely with hardware, controls, and vision engineers to bring up systems in the lab and at customer sites.
- Ensure every deployment is field-hardened, professional, and robust - no “demo code.”
What We Are Looking For
- Deep ROS 2 expertise: nodes, DDS, rclcpp, ros2_control, lifecycle management, real-time pipelines and data transfer.
- Strong computer science fundamentals: algorithms, OS, distributed systems, concurrency.
- Proven experience in industrial robotics or high-reliability automation, ideally combining PLCs and ROS 2 through industrial control protocols.
- Solid Linux and DevOps skills (Git, VS Code, Docker, systemd, CI/CD, monitoring).
- Familiarity with computer vision pipelines and hardware acceleration (CUDA, OpenCV, GStreamer) is a plus.
- Strong hardware awareness: comfortable making choices about GPUs, IPCs, networking topologies, and reliability trade-offs.
- Execution-first mindset: delivers working systems.
- Thrives as an individual contributor - passionate about building, testing, and shipping.
Why Join Us
- Build the core software architecture for the first robotic systems capable of fully automating garment production.
- Work on hard, unsolved problems in robotics with a team of top engineers.
- Be part of a fast-moving, high-ownership environment where your code ships directly into production machines.
- Shape how robotics software integrates with PLCs, vision, and industrial hardware at scale.
- Join a company backed by leading investors, with global partners in the fashion and manufacturing industries.