---
title: 'Robot Autonomy Engineer at Maven Robotics'
canonical: 'https://feeny.ai/job/robot-autonomy-engineer-maven-robotics-san-francisco-bay-area-california-6jscrk7znyzj'
type: 'job'
last_seen: '2026-09-08'
---

# Robot Autonomy Engineer at Maven Robotics

- **Company:** Maven Robotics
- **Location:** San Francisco Bay Area California, United States
- **Posted:** 2026-08-19
- **Last confirmed live:** 2026-09-08
- **Apply:** https://boards.greenhouse.io/mavenrobotics/jobs/5366516008?gh_jid=5366516008

## Job description

## Role Description

We are looking to recruit an exceptional Robot Autonomy Engineer to build the decision-making stack that turns a goal into coordinated, reliable robot behavior in real industrial applications — what the robot should do next, in what order, and how a fleet of them shares a workspace without getting in each other's way.

In this role you will:

- Own the autonomy stack above the controller — task planning, behavior planning, path planning and trajectory planning — from the moment work arrives to the trajectories handed off to motion control.
- Design the behavior architectures that structure long-horizon manipulation and navigation tasks, and that degrade into retry, recovery and operator handoff rather than into a stall.
- Bring principled task planning to industrial workflows: goal and precedence reasoning, task allocation, and planning under uncertainty.
- Plan and coordinate motion for multiple robots sharing an industrial facility — separation, reservation, deconfliction and deadlock-free repositioning — so that adding a robot adds throughput.
- Integrate LLM and VLM reasoning into planning for task decomposition, subtask grounding and language-conditioned goals, together with the verification and fallbacks that make a model's output safe to execute on real hardware.
- Define the contract between learned policies and classical planning: what the model may decide, what the planner must guarantee, and how the two hand off mid-task.
- Interface with perception, intelligence, controls, simulation and platform software in designing functional architectures that hold up under real-world operation.
- Hold the whole stack to measurable field performance — cycle time, success rate, intervention rate — through simulation, replay of recorded robot logs, and testing on real robots.

## Qualifications

Must-have:

- MS or PhD in robotics, engineering, mathematics, computer science or a related discipline.
- Real-world experience in classical motion planning for one or more robots — search-based, sampling-based or optimization-based (A*, RRT/PRM, trajectory optimization, model predictive control) — carried onto hardware rather than left in simulation.
- Real-world experience in behavior planning: finite state machines, behavior trees or comparable behavior architectures for long-horizon tasks, including failure detection and recovery.
- Familiarity with task planning in the classical AI planning sense (STRIPS, PDDL, HTN) or decision-theoretic planning (MDP, POMDP), and the judgment to know when that machinery earns its complexity against a simpler reactive design.
- Proficiency in Python and C++ programming, using up-to-date software development practices and tooling.
- Self-starter attitude with strong ability to identify problems, prioritize them, then plan and execute working solutions.
- Enthusiasm for working in a fast paced startup environment and eagerness to support the team on a variety of topics.

Nice-to-have:

- Practical experience fine-tuning and integrating LLMs or VLMs for task planning, including grounding model output in executable, verifiable plans.
- Multi-robot coordination at fleet scale: task allocation and assignment, traffic management, deconfliction, multi-agent path finding.
- Experience with mobile manipulation — coordinating a mobile base and one or more arms toward a single task.
- Familiarity with ROS 2, and with fleet interface standards such as VDA5050.
- Familiarity with planning and kinematics libraries such as Drake, OMPL or MoveIt.
- Experience evaluating planners in simulation and against replayed field logs, and the regression testing that keeps a planner honest as it changes.
- A track record of carrying autonomy from working demo to sustained field operation.
- Familiarity with functional safety (FuSa) concepts.

## About Maven Robotics

## Company Overview
- **One-liner**: Maven Robotics is building the world's leading general-purpose AI robots, starting with an industrial robot that combines strength, dexterity, mobility, and reliable physical AI to unlock productivity across manufacturing and logistics.
- **Entity Type**: Private (Seed round raised in September 2024 with 3 investors)
- **Headquarters**: Santa Clara, California, United States (with presence in Germany)
- **Founded**: 2024
- **Founders**: Hamza Derbas (Co-Founder & CEO)

## Core Business
- **Primary industry**: Robotics Engineering / Industrial Automation / AI Robotics
- **Target customers**: Large global manufacturing and logistics organizations, with a cost-efficient design that also makes automation accessible to businesses of every scale (SMB to Enterprise).
- **Mission**: "We believe the future of technology holds incredible promise, with many kinds of robots unlocking productivity, enhancing creativity, and improving life for humans everywhere. Our first step is to tackle real-world industry challenges, proving value and scalability to establish the foundation for a truly brighter future."

## Products & Services
- **General-purpose industrial robot (prototype)**: A hardware/software/AI system purpose-built for industry, combining strength, adaptive dexterity, fluid mobility, and the most reliable physical AI to work safely alongside people. Designed to be cost-efficient for businesses of all scales.

## Market Standing
- **Valuation/Market Cap**: Not disclosed
- **Key Metric**: Total funding amount not publicly available (Seed round with 3 investors, September 2024)
- **Notable Investors/Partners**: Not named in available sources; the company states they are "working with some of the largest global manufacturing and logistics organizations."
- **Growth Signals**:
  - Headcount grew 52.4% year-over-year to 28 employees (as of mid-2025) [linkedin.com]
  - High-profile talent sourcing: alumni from Apple (9), Tesla (1), Ford, Aptiv, Caterpillar, and others [linkedin.com]
  - Active hiring across 14+ roles as of July 2025: robotic AI, ML perception, manipulation, motion planning, embedded software, mechanical and electrical engineering, Data Collection Operator [mavenrobotics.ai]

## Competitive Advantages
- **First-principles, customer-focused approach** – the company prioritizes solving real industrial pain points before generalizing, ensuring near-term traction
- **Small, elite team** – composed of engineers and scientists with deep experience from top tech and robotics companies (Apple, Tesla, Ford, Intuitive Surgical, etc.)
- **Cost-efficiency** – the robot is designed to be affordable enough for SMBs, not just large enterprises, widening the addressable market
- **Full-stack robotics** – in-house capabilities in hardware design (actuators, mechanisms), embedded systems, AI/ML (perception, manipulation, foundation models), motion planning, and simulation

## Strategic Focus
- **Near-term**: Prove value and scalability in industrial manufacturing and logistics through customer deployments; ship the first generation robot
- **Long-term**: Use the industrial foundation to build general-purpose robots that can tackle diverse real-world challenges, ultimately "unlocking human potential through intelligent robotics"

## Why Work Here
- **Culture**: Described as a small team of engineers and scientists with "bold ambition, relentless curiosity, and belief in unlocking human potential through intelligent robotics." Emphasis on inventing, creating, and innovating from Silicon Valley.
- **Work model**: On-site or in-office workspace at the Santa Clara, CA headquarters. BuiltIn lists offices as "In-Office or Remote" but also states employees work from physical offices; typical time on-site is not specified. The careers page implies hands-on hardware/software work that likely requires presence. [builtin.com]
- **Notable perks/engineering culture**: Deep technical challenges across AI, perception, controls, embedded, mechanical, and electrical engineering. The team includes world-class experts from Apple, Tesla, Ford, etc. Opportunities to shape a product from prototype to deployment. Open roles include robotic AI, ML engineering, motion planning, embedded software, and hardware engineering.
- **Growth trajectory**: Rapidly growing startup (52% YoY headcount increase) with strong investor interest and a clear industrial go-to-market strategy.

## Sources
1. [mavenrobotics.ai](https://www.mavenrobotics.ai/)
2. [mavenrobotics.ai/join-us](https://www.mavenrobotics.ai/join-us)
3. [builtin.com](https://builtin.com/company/maven-robotics)
4. [linkedin.com](https://www.linkedin.com/company/maven-robotics)
5. [craft.co](https://craft.co/maven-robotics)

## Other roles at Maven Robotics

- [Robot System Testing Engineer](https://feeny.ai/job/robot-system-testing-engineer-maven-robotics-san-francisco-bay-area-california-c3gq4w3ad5eg) — San Francisco Bay Area California, United States
- [Robotic System Integration Engineer](https://feeny.ai/job/robotic-system-integration-engineer-maven-robotics-san-francisco-bay-area-h5a1q2h8t9x4) — San Francisco Bay Area California, United States
- [Robot Field Engineer](https://feeny.ai/job/robot-field-engineer-maven-robotics-san-francisco-bay-area-california-snmz665ffkcn) — San Francisco Bay Area California, United States
- [Modeling and Simulation Engineer](https://feeny.ai/job/modeling-and-simulation-engineer-maven-robotics-san-francisco-bay-area-1t3thxfx1x72) — San Francisco Bay Area California, United States
- [Lead Fleet Operations Software Engineer](https://feeny.ai/job/lead-fleet-operations-software-engineer-maven-robotics-san-francisco-bay-area-msrbbqrrhw7a) — San Francisco Bay Area California, United States
- [ML Infrastructure Engineer](https://feeny.ai/job/ml-infrastructure-engineer-maven-robotics-san-francisco-bay-area-california-htzaxk4sntfz) — San Francisco Bay Area California, United States
- [Robot Field Engineer](https://feeny.ai/job/robot-field-engineer-maven-robotics-stockton-1q7t89rtmn08) — Stockton, CA
- [Data Collection Operator](https://feeny.ai/job/data-collection-operator-maven-robotics-san-francisco-bay-area-california-ppkrgnq30g77) — San Francisco Bay Area California, United States
- [Embedded Software Engineer - Real-Time Linux](https://feeny.ai/job/embedded-software-engineer-real-time-linux-maven-robotics-san-francisco-bay-eekemkqp7mat) — San Francisco Bay Area California, United States
- [Embedded Software Engineer - Real-Time Embedded](https://feeny.ai/job/embedded-software-engineer-real-time-embedded-maven-robotics-san-francisco-bay-ts3xh3szrffy) — San Francisco Bay Area California, United States