{"id":2317051,"url":"https://alion.io/job/polymath-robotics-applications-engineer-san-francisco-3","title":"Applications Engineer - San Francisco","company":{"id":6122,"name":"Polymath Robotics","domain":"polymathrobotics.com","url":"https://alion.io/company/polymath-robotics","size_band":"11-50","is_staffing_agency":false,"employer_type":"direct","is_intermediary":false,"listed_via":null,"ats_vendor":"Work at a Startup","truth_index":null},"role":"Industrial Engineering","role_family":"Industrial Engineering","seniority":"junior","employment_type":"full_time","work_mode":"hybrid","remote_scope":null,"remote_scope_basis":null,"remote_working_hours":null,"hiring_geo_confidence":"structured","locations":["San Francisco, United States"],"countries":["US"],"hiring_countries":[],"hiring_countries_total":0,"salary":{"min":113000,"max":150000,"currency":"USD","period":"year","gross":null,"usd_annual":150000},"salary_estimate":null,"experience_years_min":1,"visa_sponsorship":false,"relocation_package":false,"has_equity":true,"technologies":[{"name":"C++","optional":false},{"name":"Path Planning","optional":false},{"name":"Python","optional":false},{"name":"ROS","optional":false},{"name":"ROS2","optional":false}],"status":"live","first_seen_at":"2026-10-12T04:59:59Z","employer_posted_date":"2026-10-12","last_verified_at":"2026-10-13T14:47:21Z","board_verified":true,"closed_at":null,"days_open":1,"trust":{"level":"ok","repost_count":null,"flags":[],"days_open":1},"description":"Overview\nPolymath builds autonomy software for industrial off-road vehicles - wheel loaders, haul trucks, excavators - deployed at steel mills, mines, and farm. These are different vehicles, in different operational design domains, and different customer environments. That diversity is the challenge: the only way to make bringing up autonomy on vehicle #40 faster than vehicle #4 is to treat autonomy bringup as a system you're continuously improving instead of a checklist re-run by hand every time.\nWe're looking for someone who is passionate about automation, treats every manual step as an opportunity to improve the process, and can move fluidly between robotics fundamentals (perception, controls, navigation) and the systems-design thinking that makes those fundamentals scale across vehicle types and environments. Every week, everyone on this team answers - what did you find that was slow, unclear, or manual, and what did you fix or automate. Individually small. Compounded across a team working on many programs, it's the difference between bringup staying a bottleneck or becoming a solved problem.\nResponsibilities\nOwn vehicle bringup end-to-end across all three phases - simulation (vehicle model, HAL config, sensor coverage), bench (networking, connectivity, load testing), and on-vehicle (teleop through waypoint autonomy with a safety driver).\n\nBuild and extend automated test suites - navigation tests, sensor coverage tests, integrator tests - that auto-generate issues on failure instead of requiring manual triage.\n\nFind the reusable pattern in every one-off. When a client or integrator asks for something specific, the role requires solving it once and making it available to the next 10 vehicles.\n\nSupport integrators and customers on-site and remotely during bench and vehicle-testing phases - validate sensor placement against physical reality, debug on the spot or remotely via logs/ROS bags, and document what's on the on-site coverage map.\n\nCommunicate directly with clients and integrators - Learn about, engage with, and educate customers on various areas of robotics including perception, controls, behavior, path planning, obstacle detection, tracking, and avoidance. Align expectations on what features cover their use case, prepare technical proposals, and explain what we can and can't do today.\n\nContribute to our ROS2 architecture where there is a gap, especially where fixing it once removes a recurring manual step across programs.\n\nTravel - is a part of the job, both for sales meetings and onsite technical support, though we try to minimize it as an organization.\n\nQualifications\nStrong in one or more of: C++, Python, ROS/ROS2, systems architecture, or test automation frameworks.\nPrior hands-on experience with robots or autonomous systems - not simulation-only.\nEvidence you've automated or systematized a manual process before, on any team, in any language.\nComfortable being the person who flags a fragile pattern before it becomes a recurring failure.\nStrong remote debugging skills - able to diagnose issues on a vehicle or integrator setup you can't physically touch, working from logs, ROS bags, and remote sessions, and knowing when an issue genuinely requires being on-site vs. when it doesn't.\nComfortable communicating directly with clients and integrators - aligning on requirements, explaining what the system can and can't do today, and translating customer intent into engineering criteria.\nExcellent written communication - you'll be documenting test coverage, handoff criteria, technical proposals, and integration improvements.\nWhy Join Polymath Robotics?\nCollaborative Environment: Work alongside fantastic team members on collaborative projects\nHybrid Workplace: Enjoy the flexibility of a hybrid work model, with engineering based in our SF Mission office three days a week, giving a good balance of maker time and synchronization time.\nOpen Source Advocacy: We strongly support open-source robotics efforts, allowing your work to be shareable and publishable whenever possible.\nHumor & Passion: We might occasionally be a bunch of rosbags, but our passion and humor drive us to accelerate the realization of autonomous vehicles in the industry.\nApplication Process:\nInterested candidates are invited to submit their resume, and optionally a cover letter detailing their experience and interest in the role, and any relevant portfolio or project links. As part of your application, answer this:\nDescribe a manual or repetitive process you automated or systematized - at any job, on any scale. What was the process before, what did you build, and how did you get the rest of your team to actually adopt it?\nPolymath Robotics is an equal-opportunity employer. We celebrate diversity and are committed to creating an inclusive environment for all employees. We don’t look for a “cultural fit”, we look for people who add to the culture.\nIdeally we want to get through this process in 1 week, 2 worst case:\nIntro call - 30 mins on Zoom\n\nTechnical Interview - 1 hr on Zoom or in person\n\nTeam Meet & Great - 1 hr in person, usually around lunch\nCan be combined with Technical Interview\n\nFounders Call - 30 mins on Zoom or in person","description_format":"text","description_chars":5195,"description_truncated":false,"requirements":{"experience_years_min":1,"management_years_min":null,"team_size_min":null,"manages_managers":false,"education":null,"security_clearance":false,"languages":[]},"benefits":["Hybrid work"],"hiring_locations":[{"name":"United States","iso":"US","kind":"country"}],"hiring_excludes":[],"relocation_offered":false,"industries":["Autonomous Driving","Mining & Heavy Industry Robotics","Robotic Software & Control Systems"],"lifecycle":[{"event":"open","at":"2026-10-12T04:59:59Z"}],"visa":[{"country":"US","licensed_sponsor":true,"evidence":"H-1B filings in 12 months: 1","filings_12m":1,"filings_prev_12m":0,"green_card_filings_12m":0,"median_offered_wage_usd":137500,"route":null,"cap_exempt":false,"checked_at":"2026-10-03T21:08:04+00:00","sources":["US Department of Labor: LCA disclosure data (H-1B, H-1B1, E-3)"],"filings_for_role_12m":0}],"liveness":{"score":86,"band":"hot","label":"Hiring now","p_open":1,"p_active":0.86,"p_room":1,"age_days":1,"expected_fill_days":24,"reasons":["conf:1","win:early","comp:junior"],"computed_at":"2026-10-13T05:45:00Z"},"pay":{"stated_usd_annual":150000,"is_top_pay":true},"html_url":"https://alion.io/job/polymath-robotics-applications-engineer-san-francisco-3","json_url":"https://alion.io/job/polymath-robotics-applications-engineer-san-francisco-3.json","meta":{"generated_at":"2026-10-13T16:44:05Z","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":25439,"day_limit":null,"remaining_today":null,"minute_limit":300,"resets_at":"2026-10-14T00:00:00Z"}},"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":6122},"rest":"https://alion.io/mcp/rest/get_company?id=6122"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=company.slices&for=job%2Fpolymath-robotics-applications-engineer-san-francisco-3"},{"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%2Fpolymath-robotics-applications-engineer-san-francisco-3"},{"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%2Fpolymath-robotics-applications-engineer-san-francisco-3"},{"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/polymath-robotics-applications-engineer-san-francisco-3\", \"note\": \"what you need it for\"}"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=company.verify&for=job%2Fpolymath-robotics-applications-engineer-san-francisco-3"}]}