Robotics Software Engineer

Robotics Software Engineer

Company: Medra
Location: San Francisco, CA (in office 5 days per week)
Compensation: $148,000 - $230,000 + competitive equity
Employment Type: Full-time
Visa Sponsorship: Visa transfers and new sponsorship (H-1B, TN)

About Medra

Medra uses AI, robotics and biology to accelerate life science research, with the goal of eradicating disease. It is building a Scientific Physical AI platform that lets scientists scale their lab work and generate far more data, whether to bring a new drug to the clinic or to train a biology foundation model.

Founded in 2021, Medra is a later-stage company whose team of about 30 engineers comes from Tesla, SpaceX, Neuralink and Amazon.

The Role

Medra is hiring Robotics Software Engineers (2-5 years) to build robotic systems that will transform life science research. You will develop software that lets robots operate scientific instruments with human-level dexterity: manipulating biology tools, avoiding collisions in dynamic lab environments and closing the loop with computer vision. It is a high-ownership role shaping major parts of the robotics stack.

What You Will Do

• Develop motion planning and trajectory optimization for robot arm manipulators in dynamic lab environments.
• Integrate, test and debug across simulation and physical robots, shipping code that runs on real hardware.
• Use computer vision so robots can work with consumables and equipment designed for humans.
• Work directly with partner scientists at customer labs on pain points, solutions and deployment.
• Simplify and design for scalability and robustness across the robotics platform.

What You Bring

• 2-5 years of robotics software experience
• Motion planning and trajectory optimization for manipulators
• Strong C++ and Python
• Experience shipping code to real hardware as well as simulation (PyBullet, MuJoCo)
• Ability to work in the San Francisco office 5 days a week

Nice to Have

• Computer vision for manipulation
• Lab automation or life sciences exposure

Tech Stack

C++, Python, PyBullet, MuJoCo, ZMQ, Redis, gRPC

REVENUE: 17% of first-year salary. Est. fee per hire $25K-$39K; 8 seat(s) = up to $257K if all filled.

TARGET COMPANIES (client (team pedigree) + suggested): Tesla, SpaceX, Neuralink, Amazon Robotics, Berkshire Grey, Emerald Cloud Lab.

BEST-FIT CANDIDATE: 2-5 yrs; manipulator motion planning; C++/Python on real robots; visa: transfers + new H-1B/TN; location: SF 5 days.