---
title: 'Robotics Software Engineer at Medra'
canonical: 'https://feeny.ai/job/robotics-software-engineer-medra-san-francisco-2mg03whcxs8r'
type: 'job'
last_seen: '2026-09-08'
---

# Robotics Software Engineer at Medra

- **Company:** Medra
- **Location:** San Francisco, CA
- **Employment:** full-time
- **Work type:** onsite
- **Posted:** 2026-07-14
- **Last confirmed live:** 2026-09-08
- **Apply:** https://jobs.ashbyhq.com/medraai/d320da8d-ef93-46c3-ba46-6b0f45bd6ff8

## Job description

## WHAT WE'RE BUILDING:

We have been quietly building the foundational layers of our Physical AI Scientist platform: 🤖 Physical AI that can operate scientific instruments with human-level dexterity. 🧪 Scientific AI that can analyze results, reason about next steps, and close the loop autonomously.

This is an incredibly ambitious mission, but we believe that a team of ambitious people with high ownership can accomplish incredible things.

## THE TEAM:

- We’re a team of passionate, mission-driven engineers from companies like Tesla, Amazon, SpaceX, and Neuralink. We’re collaborative and love moving fast, both with our product and on team trips skiing or go-karting!
- As a team, we love nerding out about engineering and robotics — plus other topics like race cars or cooking. We like learning new things and then sharing our new knowledge with each other.
- Our team is opinionated and straightforward. We don’t mind intense discussions about design tradeoffs. If we have arguments or miscommunication, we resolve conflicts quickly and empathetically.

## IN THIS ROLE, YOU WILL:

- Develop robotic solutions to manipulate and control biology tools designed for humans
- Develop and implement motion planning algorithms to avoid collisions in a complex and dynamic environment
- Use computer vision to work with consumables and equipment that humans use
- Integrate, test, and debug software solutions in simulation and on physical robots
- Work with partner scientists at customer labs to understand their pain points, ideate on creative solutions, decompose into individual projects, and guide implementation and deployment
- Besides your focus on robustness and performance, you’ll be expected to identify opportunities for simplification, and to design for scalability
- This position is 100% in-person, you must be able to come on-site to our San Francisco office. We do not offer hybrid roles at Medra. We do offer relocation benefits for applicants that need to relocate.

## LET'S TALK IF YOU HAVE:

- 4+ years of experience designing and building algorithms for robotics systems
- Experience or familiarity with robot arm manipulators
- Proficient in Python
- Relevant research/work experience in one or more of the following areas: motion planning and trajectory optimization, kinematics and dynamics, and control.
- Experience with software engineering tools and best practices in production
- A hacker’s mindset - getting quickly to a good-enough solution
- A willingness to wear many hats / a flexible attitude towards responsibilities and scope
- BS/MS/Ph.D. in Computer Science, Mechanical Engineering, Electrical Engineering, Aeronautical Engineering or a related discipline, or equivalent experience

## BONUS POINTS IF YOU HAVE:

- Experience with robotic simulation systems such as PyBullet or MuJoCo
- Experience with robotics in a laboratory or manufacturing environment
- Understanding of software communication protocols (ZMQ, Redis, gRPC, etc…)
- Contribution to software for a hardware product that shipped
- Experience with robotics manipulation

## WHAT WE OFFER:

- 401k
- Medical insurance
- Dental Insurance
- Relocation benefits
- Unlimited PTO
- Weekday dinners

Medra is an equal opportunity employer and prohibits discrimination and harassment of any type without regard to race, color, ancestry, national origin, religion or religious creed, mental or physical disability, medical condition, genetic information, sex (including pregnancy, childbirth, and related medical conditions), sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, age, marital status, military or veteran status, citizenship, or other characteristics protected by state, federal or local law or our other policies. We value diversity at Medra and welcome applications from those who are traditionally underrepresented in tech. If you like the sound of this position but are not sure if you are the perfect fit, please apply!

## About Medra

## Company Overview
- **One-liner**: Building autonomous Physical AI for the lab to accelerate scientific discovery by executing and optimizing experiments in a closed loop.
- **Entity Type**: Private (Series A)
- **Headquarters**: San Francisco, California, United States (340 Pine Street, Suite 100)
- **Founded**: 2021 (some sources cite 2022 – conflicting reports)
- **Founders**: Michelle Lee (CEO)

## Core Business
- **Primary industries**: Life sciences automation, laboratory robotics, AI-driven experimental design
- **Target customers**: B2B – biopharma companies, academic research labs, government agencies (e.g., DARPA)
- **Mission / purpose**: Unlock breakthroughs at scale by tightly integrating AI scientific reasoning with physical experimentation.

## Products & Services
- **Physical AI Lab (Medra Lab 001 – ML001)**: A fully autonomous robotic workcell that executes wet-lab protocols (e.g., CRISPR, cell culture, NGS) using computer vision and robotic manipulation. Instrument-agnostic and modular.
- **AI Experimentalist**: The scientific reasoning layer that translates natural-language research goals into executable experiment plans, coordinates multi-step protocols, analyzes results, and refines methods in a closed loop.
- **Platform Type**: Physical AI + Scientific AI as a service (on-site deployment or remote operation via ML001).

## Market Standing
- **Valuation / Market Cap**: Not publicly disclosed
- **Key Metric**: Total funding of $63M (Series A of $52M closed December 2025, preceded by $11M pre-seed in October 2025 and a non-equity assistance from PharmStars in 2023)
- **Notable Investors / Partners**: Human Capital (lead), Lux Capital, Menlo Ventures, Catalio Capital, Neo, 776 (Seven Seven Six), Fusion Fund, Nat Friedman & Daniel Gross
- **Growth Signals**:
  - Headcount grew 100% YoY (31 employees as of mid-2026)
  - Launched ML001 in San Francisco (April 2026) — largest autonomous lab in the U.S.
  - Announced DARPA collaboration (June 2026) to advance natural-language-to-executable-experiment capabilities
  - 8 open positions across biology, engineering, design, and operations

## Competitive Advantages
- **Closed-loop integration**: Combines physical execution with AI-driven experimental design and learning – not just robotic task automation.
- **Instrument-agnostic & modular**: Works with both manual and automated lab instruments, allowing easy swapping of modules and protocols.
- **Natural-language programming**: Scientists can edit protocols in plain English (written or voice).
- **Scalable data generation**: Logs every action, video, and metadata per sample for traceability and model training.

## Strategic Focus
- Expand partnerships with biopharma, academia, and government (DARPA is a key early customer).
- Advance the AI Experimentalist layer to enable full autonomous hypothesis generation and validation.
- Scale deployments of Physical AI Labs on-site and remotely through ML001.

## Why Work Here
- **Culture**: Described as “intense curiosity and rigorous debate” with clear, direct communication and quick resolution of conflicts through mutual respect.
- **Team**: Community of diverse thinkers, “not just a company but a movement to transform biotechnology.”
- **Work policy**: Likely on-site at the San Francisco lab given the nature of physical robotics; no explicit remote/hybrid policy mentioned.
- **Perks & highlights**: Opportunity to work on cutting-edge AI + robotics with a high-impact mission; funded by top-tier VCs; strong engineering culture (43% technical staff, many from Neuralink, Applied Intuition, Amazon, Carnegie Mellon).

## Sources
1. [medra.ai](https://www.medra.ai/)
2. [medra.ai/careers](https://www.medra.ai/careers)
3. [linkedin.com/company/medra-ai](https://www.linkedin.com/company/medra-ai)
4. [cbinsights.com/company/medra](https://www.cbinsights.com/company/medra)
5. [medra.ai/darpa-collaboration](https://www.medra.ai/darpa-collaboration)
6. [jobs.ashbyhq.com/medraai](https://jobs.ashbyhq.com/medraai)

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