Robotics Software Engineer – Fault Detection & Recovery

At Serve Robotics, we’re reimagining how things move in cities. Our personable sidewalk robot is our vision for the future. It’s designed to take deliveries away from congested streets, make deliveries available to more people, and benefit local businesses.

The Serve fleet has been delighting merchants, customers, and pedestrians along the way in Los Angeles, Miami, Dallas, Atlanta and Chicago while doing commercial deliveries. We’re looking for talented individuals who will grow robotic deliveries from surprising novelty to efficient ubiquity.

Who We Are

We are tech industry veterans in software, hardware, and design who are pooling our skills to build the future we want to live in. We are solving real-world problems leveraging robotics, machine learning and computer vision, among other disciplines, with a mindful eye towards the end-to-end user experience. Our team is agile, diverse, and driven. We believe that the best way to solve complicated dynamic problems is collaboratively and respectfully.

We’re looking for an experienced Robotics Software Engineer to develop robust fault detection, diagnosis, and recovery systems for autonomous robots. In this role, you’ll design the frameworks and behaviors that enable robots to detect failures, adapt to degraded conditions, and recover safely. You’ll work across autonomy, controls, and systems teams to enhance reliability, resilience, and operational safety.

Responsibilities

• Design and implement fault detection and recovery frameworks across autonomy and control components.

• Lead Failure Modes and Effects Analysis (FMEA) activities and translate findings into actionable software mechanisms.

• Develop health monitoring and diagnostics systems to assess real-time component and subsystem performance.

• Implement state management and recovery logic for scenarios like sensor degradation, controller faults, and odometry resets.

• Define and execute degradation-aware behaviors to ensure safe operation under partial system failures.

• Establish end-to-end performance and latency monitoring to support fault-tolerant autonomy.

• Contribute to ODD (Operational Design Domain) detection and management, ensuring appropriate system response to environmental changes.

Qualifications

• 3+ years of experience in robotics or autonomous systems software development.

• Strong proficiency in C++ and Python, with experience in real-time and distributed systems.

• Solid understanding of autonomy architectures, including perception, planning, localization and control pipelines.

• Hands-on experience with ROS/ROS2 or similar robotic middleware.

• Familiarity with fault-tolerant design, FMEA, diagnostics, or reliability engineering.

• Proven ability to collaborate across software and hardware teams to deliver resilient robotic systems.

What Makes You Stand Out

• Background in autonomous vehicles, mobile robotics, or field robotics.

• Experience with system telemetry, health monitoring, and data-driven validation.

• Knowledge of state machines, behavior trees, or similar frameworks for failure management.

• Understanding of SOTIF or related safety frameworks.

• Exposure to machine learning or analytics for anomaly and fault detection.

* Please note: The base salary range listed in this job description reflects compensation for candidates based in the San Francisco Bay Area. While we prefer candidates located in the Bay Area, we are also open to qualified talent working remotely across the United States.

Base salary range (U.S. – all locations): $140k - $165k USD

Base salary range (Canada - all locations): $118k - $135k CAD