{"id":3641232,"url":"https://alion.io/job/boston-engineering-principal-robotics-engineer-rd","title":"Principal Robotics Engineer - R&D","company":{"id":176789,"name":"Boston Engineering","domain":"boston-engineering.com","url":"https://alion.io/company/boston-engineering","size_band":"51-200","is_staffing_agency":false,"employer_type":"direct","is_intermediary":false,"listed_via":null,"ats_vendor":"SmartRecruiters","truth_index":null},"role":"Robotics","role_family":"Robotics","seniority":"lead","employment_type":"full_time","work_mode":"on_site","remote_scope":null,"remote_scope_basis":null,"remote_working_hours":null,"hiring_geo_confidence":"structured","locations":["Waltham, United States"],"countries":["US"],"hiring_countries":[],"hiring_countries_total":0,"salary":{"min":150000,"max":190000,"currency":"USD","period":"year","gross":null,"usd_annual":190000},"salary_estimate":null,"experience_years_min":10,"visa_sponsorship":false,"relocation_package":false,"has_equity":false,"technologies":[{"name":"SolidWorks","optional":false},{"name":"Verification & Validation","optional":false},{"name":"Path Planning","optional":true},{"name":"ROS","optional":true}],"status":"live","first_seen_at":"2026-11-02T21:34:30Z","employer_posted_date":"2026-11-02","last_verified_at":"2026-11-04T21:34:32Z","board_verified":true,"closed_at":null,"days_open":2,"trust":{"level":"ok","repost_count":null,"flags":[],"days_open":2},"description":"Boston Engineering is seeking a Principal Robotics Engineer - R&D to join our team in Waltham, MA!\nBoston Engineering is where innovative ideas become real-world technologies. Headquartered in Waltham, Massachusetts, we've spent more than 30 years partnering with commercial and government clients to solve complex engineering challenges and bring breakthrough products to market. From advanced robotics and autonomous systems to medical devices, digital solutions, defense technologies, and industrial automation, our teams work on meaningful projects that push the boundaries of what's possible.\nWhy Join Boston Engineering?\nBuild products with real-world purpose. Contribute to technologies that address challenging commercial and government needs\nOwn consequential technical decisions. Shape mechanical concepts and system architecture, guide design tradeoffs, and help clients choose a path forward\nStay close to the work. Combine technical leadership with design, prototyping, analysis, and testing\nKeep expanding your expertise. Work across industries alongside mechanical, electrical, software, systems, and manufacturing engineers\nMultiply your impact. Mentor engineers, develop future technical leaders, and strengthen engineering practices across the organization\nSee how Boston Engineering helps clients turn complex ideas into real-world products and technologies\n\nWatch: Boston Engineering - Product Development Services\n Provide hands-on technical leadership and systems engineering ownership for Boston Engineering's robotic inspection systems, with primary focus on Surface Mobility Platform (SMP) and secondary focus on micro underwater remotely operated vehicles (mROV). Based in Waltham, MA this person will translate customer needs into integrated, verified systems and lead the engineering transition from prototypes to commercial production. Guide mechanical, electrical, controls and software engineers through architecture and interface decisions, integration, demonstrations and field troubleshooting. Secondary mROV work covers agreed architecture, reusable capabilities and targeted integration.\n Key responsibilities\nOwn systems engineering and the integrated technical plan for assigned SMP efforts, with secondary mROV support. Translate stakeholder needs into requirements, subsystem allocations, system architecture, interfaces, and verification and validation criteria \nWork hands-on in development and integration, resolving difficult technical problems and leading root-cause investigations. Lead trade studies and cross-disciplinary design decisions with functional leads and program leadership, within agreed technical decision and escalation boundaries\nLead integration of hardware, robotics software and controls across embedded computing, sensing and sensor processing, motion control, inspection payloads, operator interfaces, vehicle-to-operator communications and data capture. Address localization, navigation, mobility or adhesion as applicable\nCollaboratively establish architecture baselines and configuration compatibility across mechanical revisions, electronics, firmware and software, and calibration data. Identify shared capabilities while preserving product-specific constraints and interfaces\nLead engineering reviews, integration milestones, verification and validation, failure investigations and regression testing. Maintain traceability from needs and requirements to test evidence, and surface technical, schedule and resource risks early\nLead engineering efforts supporting production readiness with manufacturing, quality and supply-chain teams. Address manufacturability, component and sourcing risks, assembly efficiency, repeatable pilot builds, release and service documentation, reliability, maintainability, calibration and field diagnostics. Provide technical input rather than assume purchasing or manufacturing execution ownership\nEvaluate new product concepts and competitive products to inform performance targets, differentiation and technology roadmaps. Support intellectual property development through invention disclosures and technical input to patent activities\nMentor engineers and contribute to proposals, customer demonstrations, field preparation and clear explanations of system capability and limitations\n 10+ years of relevant engineering experience, including at least 5 years in robotics \nDemonstrated delivery or integration of mobile robotic or comparably complex robotic systems, including hands-on integration and troubleshooting \nDepth in a relevant engineering discipline and sufficient breadth to lead tradeoffs across hardware, software, controls, embedded computing and sensing \nExperience owning systems engineering work, including requirements development and allocation, architecture, interface management, technical trade studies and verification planning, using traceability and experimental evidence \nDemonstrated technical contribution to the transition of robotic or complex electromechanical prototypes to commercial production \nHands-on proficiency in CAD design and assembly modeling (SolidWorks preferred), with the ability to interpret engineering drawings and mechanical constraints and resolve electromechanical interfaces \nAbility to lead multidisciplinary technical work, communicate risk and document interfaces and engineering decisions \nBS in Mechanical, Electrical, Robotics, Mechatronics, Computer Engineering or a closely related discipline, or equivalent relevant practical experience\nPreferred experience\nInspection robotics, crawler or surface-adhering platforms, challenging industrial environments, and field support relevant to SMP; underwater or marine robotics for secondary mROV work \nSupplier qualification, design for manufacturability and assembly, production documentation and pilot builds \nLocalization, mapping, path planning, closed-loop control, ROS or ROS 2 or comparable middleware; an MS in a relevant discipline \n This role is restricted to US persons (i.e., US citizens, permanent residents, and other protected individuals under the Immigration and Naturalization Act, 8 USC 1324b(a)(3)) due to access to export-controlled technology. Boston Engineering will require proof of status prior to employment.\nEmployment Type: Full-Time Role\nReports to: VP, Research and Development\nLocation: Office-based role in Waltham, Massachusetts\nRelocation: Not available at this time\nTravel: Minimal\nSalary Range: The base salary range for this position is $150,000 - $190,000 annually, commensurate with experience and qualifications. The final offer amount will be determined by factors such as the candidate’s education, knowledge, experience, and skills. A comprehensive benefits package, including health insurance, 401(k) match, and paid time off, is also provided.\nAll your information will be kept confidential according to EEO guidelines.\nInterested?\nPlease contact Christine Higgins, Senior Talent Acquisition Partner, Boston Engineering\nemail: \nWe are hiring - Apply Here\nLinkedIn","description_format":"text","description_chars":7057,"description_truncated":false,"requirements":{"experience_years_min":10,"management_years_min":null,"team_size_min":null,"manages_managers":false,"education":null,"security_clearance":false,"languages":[{"language":"English","level":"All levels","optional":false}]},"benefits":["Health insurance"],"hiring_locations":[{"name":"United States","iso":"US","kind":"country"}],"hiring_excludes":[],"relocation_offered":true,"industries":["Industrial Design","Engineering Services"],"lifecycle":[{"event":"open","at":"2026-11-02T21:49:26Z"}],"visa":[],"liveness":{"score":86,"band":"hot","label":"Hiring now","p_open":1,"p_active":0.86,"p_room":1,"age_days":1,"expected_fill_days":56,"reasons":["conf:4","win:early"],"computed_at":"2026-11-04T06:34:25Z"},"pay":{"stated_usd_annual":190000,"is_top_pay":false},"html_url":"https://alion.io/job/boston-engineering-principal-robotics-engineer-rd","json_url":"https://alion.io/job/boston-engineering-principal-robotics-engineer-rd.json","meta":{"generated_at":"2026-11-04T22:11:10Z","cache_seconds":300,"methodology":"https://alion.io/methodology","terms":"https://alion.io/terms","contact":"https://alion.io/contact","api":"https://alion.io/developers","about":"Alion is a live layer of people, companies and AI agents: who they are, whether they are real and active right now, what they do and how to work with them, readable by people and by agents and paid per call.","catalog":"https://alion.io/catalog.json","usage":{"tier":"crawler_verified","counted_by":"address","units_charged":1,"used_today":380,"day_limit":null,"remaining_today":null,"minute_limit":300,"resets_at":"2026-11-05T00:00:00Z"}},"offers":[{"id":"company.slices","title":"One company in depth, by slice","status":"live","price":{"credits":0.02,"usd":0.002,"plus_per_slice":{"credits":0.05,"usd":0.005}},"unit":"per company, plus each slice with data","note":"the employer in depth","call":{"mcp_tool":"get_company","arguments":{"id":176789},"rest":"https://alion.io/mcp/rest/get_company?id=176789"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=company.slices&for=job%2Fboston-engineering-principal-robotics-engineer-rd"},{"id":"market.stats","title":"A market slice: pay, demand and time to fill","status":"live","price":{"credits":1,"usd":0.1},"unit":"per slice","note":"pay, demand and time to fill for this role and place","call":{"mcp_tool":"market_stats"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=market.stats&for=job%2Fboston-engineering-principal-robotics-engineer-rd"},{"id":"job.search","title":"Open jobs by role, technology, place, pay and visa","status":"live","price":{"credits":0.02,"usd":0.002},"unit":"per posting in a list","note":"similar open postings","call":{"mcp_tool":"search_jobs"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=job.search&for=job%2Fboston-engineering-principal-robotics-engineer-rd"},{"id":"company.verify","title":"Is this company real and active right now","status":"pilot","price":null,"unit":"per company","request":{"url":"https://alion.io/catalog/request","method":"POST","body":"{\"offer\": \"company.verify\", \"for\": \"job/boston-engineering-principal-robotics-engineer-rd\", \"note\": \"what you need it for\"}"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=company.verify&for=job%2Fboston-engineering-principal-robotics-engineer-rd"}],"agent":{"mcp":"https://alion.io/mcp/jobs","mcp_open":"https://alion.io/mcp/open","next":[{"tool":"get_job","arguments":{"id":3641232}},{"tool":"search_jobs","arguments":{"company":"boston-engineering.com","detail":"compact"}},{"tool":"match_people","arguments":{"job_id":3641232},"note":"people open to offers who fit this vacancy"}],"note":"The same data through MCP tools: https://alion.io/mcp/open needs no sign-in (compact searches, postings, people); https://alion.io/mcp with an Alion account has everything. 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