Senior Staff Software Engineer - Deployment & Interaction

JOB SUMMARY

Apptronik is hiring a Senior Staff Software Engineer to define the architecture for how our humanoid robots are deployed, integrated, and interacted with in the real world. This role establishes a new technical pillar focused on the last mile of customer engagement: turning Apollo from a platform capability into a fielded, demonstrable, and intuitively operable system at customer sites. The engineer will set the architectural direction for both deployment infrastructure and human-robot interaction (HRI) — designing the interfaces, tools, and workflows that customers, operators, and field engineers use to bring our robots online and put them to work. Initially reporting to the VP of Software Engineering, this leader will partner closely with Infrastructure Software, Platform Software, Hardware, Autonomy, Commercial and Product to translate platform capability into deployed customer outcomes, and will provide technical leadership to the Application Engineers and Software Support Engineers executing field delivery and customer-facing integration. This is an individual contributor role focused on technical architecture, mentorship, and field engineering judgment; people management of the supporting team will be held by engineering management.

ESSENTIAL DUTIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES or KEY ACCOUNTABILITIES

• Technical Architecture & Vision: Define the end-to-end architecture for Apptronik's deployment and interaction software stack — the systems, interfaces, and tooling that take Apollo from the lab to a working installation at a customer site. Establish a technical north star that mirrors the rigor of our core platform architecture while serving the distinct needs of field, demo, and customer-facing engineering.
• Human-Robot Interaction Design: Lead the architectural strategy for how humans interact with our robots — from operator interfaces and supervisory control to natural and intuitive end-user interactions. Drive design choices that make complex robotic capabilities legible, controllable, and trustworthy to non-expert users.
• Customer Site Integration: Own the technical strategy for last-mile delivery and integration at customer environments — spanning on-site infrastructure (compute, networking, hardware monitoring) and platform integration (Fleet Connect, DMS, MLOps tooling). Define the patterns, tooling, and standards that enable repeatable, reliable deployments across heterogeneous customer infrastructure, processes, and operational constraints.
• Technical Leadership of Field Engineering: Provide architectural and technical direction for the Application Engineers and Software Support Engineers who execute customer demos and deployments — spanning on-site infrastructure work, ML operation in deployment (model fine-tuning, deployment, and evaluation against customer task requirements), and HRI design. Mentor across these disciplines, set technical standards for deployment work, and partner with engineering management on hiring, prioritization, and team growth without owning people management directly.
• Demo & Field Engineering Excellence: Establish the engineering practices, tooling, and operational posture — observability, SLOs, incident response, and on-call rituals — required to support live customer demonstrations, pilots, and production installations. Lead from the front technically on the most critical customer engagements and pressure-test the platform's readiness through real-world use. Maintain in-person presence at high-stakes customer sites and demos, with travel expected up to 25%.
• Cross-Functional Partnership: Own the architecture of customer-specific rollouts and final-mile implementations, ensuring each deployment lands reliably in its target environment. Partner deeply with Infrastructure Software (Core), Autonomy, Hardware, Commercial, and Product to translate platform capabilities into deployable, demonstrable customer-facing solutions, and influence platform requirements and product direction by surfacing field learnings back into the core roadmap.
• Technical Mentorship & Influence: Operate as an org-wide technical authority on deployment, integration, and HRI. Mentor senior and staff engineers across teams, raise the technical bar through design reviews and architectural guidance, and represent Apptronik's engineering thinking externally to customers and partners.

SKILLS AND REQUIREMENTS

• Proven track record architecting and shipping complex, customer-facing systems where software, hardware, and human users must operate together reliably.
• Deep experience designing intuitive interfaces for complex technical systems — robotics, immersive media, interactive installations, or comparable domains where non-expert users must operate sophisticated machinery.
• Demonstrated ability to lead last-mile engineering: field deployment, on-site integration, live demonstrations, and the rapid debugging required when systems meet the real world.
• Experience building and leading multidisciplinary engineering teams that span software, systems, and customer-facing functions; ability to recruit, mentor, and develop senior talent.
• Strong systems thinking across the full operational stack that deployments depend on — distributed systems, on-site compute and networking, site reliability practice (observability, SLOs, incident response), and ML operation in deployment (model adaptation, evaluation, and lifecycle management). Need not be a primary expert in each, but able to set direction and hold the technical bar across all.
• Exceptional communication skills with the ability to operate fluently across executive, customer, and deep-technical audiences.
• Comfort operating in high-ambiguity, high-visibility environments where the engineering work is inseparable from the customer and product narrative.

Bonus Qualifications:

• Hands-on experience with humanoid robotics, manipulation, teleoperation, or other embodied AI systems.
• Familiarity with ROS, real-time control systems, and embedded software stacks.
• Prior experience defining HRI patterns, voice interfaces, gestural control, or other natural interaction modalities for physical systems.
• History of representing engineering organizations externally — customer engagements, conference talks, or public demonstrations.
• EDUCATION and/or EXPERIENCE
• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Robotics, Electrical Engineering, or a related technical field; advanced degree preferred.
• 12+ years of progressive software engineering experience, OR 6+ years of direct domain experience in robotics, humanoid systems, teleoperation, or human-robot interaction at the staff/principal level.
• Demonstrated experience leading customer-facing or field engineering functions for a complex hardware/software product.

PHYSICAL REQUIREMENTS

• Prolonged periods of sitting at a desk and working on a computer
• Must be able to lift 15 pounds at times
• Vision to read printed materials and a computer screen
• Hearing and speech to communicate