---
title: 'Senior Software Engineer, Applied AI at Bot Auto'
canonical: 'https://feeny.ai/job/senior-software-engineer-applied-ai-bot-auto-houston-j1tgznvt7t4s'
type: 'job'
last_seen: '2026-10-16'
---

# Senior Software Engineer, Applied AI at Bot Auto

- **Company:** Bot Auto
- **Location:** Houston, TX / San Francisco Bay Area
- **Posted:** 2026-09-18
- **Last confirmed live:** 2026-10-16
- **Apply:** https://job-boards.greenhouse.io/botauto/jobs/5428954008

## Job description

Company Introduction

At Bot Auto, we are revolutionizing the transportation of goods with our cutting-edge autonomous trucks, enhancing the quality of life for communities around the globe. With the agility of a start-up and the wisdom of seasoned experts, Bot Auto boasts a team that has achieved numerous world-firsts and unparalleled innovations. United by a shared vision, we create miracles and propel the future of transportation. Join us and transform your dreams into reality.

We are seeking a Senior Software Engineer, Applied AI to architect, build, ship, and operate production-grade AI and agentic systems across Bot Auto. This is an engineering-first role for a senior software engineer with proven experience building real AI agentic products or business workflows in production. You should be comfortable owning the system end to end across backend services, full-stack applications, databases, infrastructure, integrations, and modern AI/LLM engineering, while making sound decisions about where probabilistic AI should and should not be used.

## Key Responsibilities

- Own architecture and end-to-end implementation of production agentic products and workflows from problem definition through deployment and operation.
- Design boundaries between deterministic software, workflow engines, databases, source systems, and probabilistic agent reasoning.
- Build and review backend services, APIs, full-stack applications, and operator/user-facing tools supporting agentic workflows.
- Design agent orchestration, tool contracts, workflow state, memory, context, retrieval, approvals, escalation, retries, idempotency, rollback, and failure recovery.
- Design production data architecture, including relational schemas, state persistence, caching/search, event systems, and consistency behavior.
- Integrate AI systems with enterprise tools, internal APIs, data platforms, and operational systems while preserving permissions, auditability, and source-of-authority boundaries.
- Partner with infrastructure teams on cloud architecture, containers, CI/CD, queues, observability, tracing, security, scaling, latency, and cost.
- Establish reusable engineering patterns and reference implementations; work directly with users to convert high-value workflows into reliable products.

Required Qualifications

- 6+ years of relevant professional software engineering experience, or equivalent demonstrated experience building and shipping production systems.
- Demonstrated hands-on experience architecting, building, shipping, and operating production-grade AI agentic applications, products, or business workflows.
- Strong backend and full-stack engineering capability across services, APIs, databases, application state, and user-facing web applications.
- Strong programming skills in Python and at least one modern application language such as TypeScript/JavaScript, or Go.
- Strong understanding of distributed systems, databases, data modeling, transactions/consistency, event-driven architectures, and production application design.
- Strong working knowledge of cloud infrastructure, containers, CI/CD, observability, security, and production operations.
- Deep practical understanding of LLM/agent systems, including tool calling, orchestration, context, retrieval, memory, workflow state, human review, guardrails, and failure recovery.
- Experience owning real production issues such as nondeterministic failures, stale context, tool errors, duplicate actions, permission failures, model regressions, latency, and cost trade-offs.

## Preferred Qualifications

- Experience with MCP, LangGraph, LangChain, LlamaIndex, or equivalent agent/tool orchestration frameworks.
- Experience with Temporal or another durable workflow engine for long-running, stateful workflows.
- Experience designing RAG, hybrid retrieval, vector search, graph/knowledge systems, or context-engineering architectures.
- Experience with eval-driven development, tracing, offline/online evaluation, model/prompt versioning, guardrails, and regression testing.
- Experience leading technical initiatives across teams; experience in autonomous systems, logistics, robotics, or other mission-critical domains is a plus.

## Compensation

For candidates based in California, the anticipated annual base salary range for this position is $160,000–$220,000. The final base salary will be determined based on factors such as the candidate’s qualifications, relevant experience, demonstrated skills, position level, scope of responsibilities, and work location. This base salary range does not include any applicable bonus, equity, or benefits.

## About Bot Auto

## Company Overview
- **One-liner**: Bot Auto is a Houston, Texas-based autonomous trucking company developing Level 4 (L4) self-driving technology to operate a fleet of autonomous trucks and offer Transportation as a Service (TaaS) to major shippers and 3PLs.
- **Entity Type**: Private (Seed Stage)
- **Headquarters**: Houston, Texas, United States
- **Founded**: 2023
- **Founders**: Dr. Xiaodi Hou (CEO)

## Core Business
- **Primary Industry**: Freight and Package Transportation / Autonomous Trucking
- **Target Customers**: B2B — Enterprise shippers and third-party logistics providers (3PLs) seeking dedicated autonomous trucking capacity.
- **Mission Statement**: To make a lasting positive impact on humanity by revolutionizing the transportation industry with autonomous trucks, reducing environmental impact, and improving the quality of life for communities worldwide. [bot.auto](https://bot.auto/about)

## Products & Services
- **Autonomous Trucking Fleet (TaaS)**: Bot Auto operates a fleet of L4 autonomous trucks on Texas roads, providing a "Transportation as a Service" model. They target real shippers who need goods moved immediately, as well as transportation brokers looking for a dedicated carrier partner. [bot.auto](https://bot.auto/)
- **Cost Per Mile (CPM) Framework**: A publicly available benchmarking standard developed in partnership with Boston Consulting Group to measure operational efficiency for autonomous trucking companies, helping stakeholders make data-driven decisions. [bot.auto](https://bot.auto/)

## Market Standing
- **Valuation/Market Cap**: Not publicly available.
- **Key Metric — Total Funding**: **$20.0M** in a single Seed round closed on September 26, 2024, backed by 9 investors. [LinkedIn](https://www.linkedin.com/company/bot-auto)
- **Notable Customers**: J.B. Hunt, Ryan Transportation, Steves & Sons. [bot.auto](https://bot.auto/)
- **Growth Signals**: Employs 68 people with a 39.3% year-over-year headcount increase (+24 people); active job postings are up 60% year-over-year; the company has successfully deployed self-driving vehicles in Texas. [LinkedIn](https://www.linkedin.com/company/bot-auto)

## Competitive Advantages
- **Leadership & Talent**: Founded by Dr. Xiaodi Hou, a recognized industry leader in autonomy. The engineering team is heavily staffed from top talent pools, including 23 former employees of TuSimple, along with engineers from NVIDIA, Waymo, Lucid Motors, and Motional. [LinkedIn](https://www.linkedin.com/company/bot-auto)
- **Safety-First Foundation**: The company explicitly states "Safety isn't a feature — It's our foundation," positioning safety and operational rigor as the core differentiator. [bot.auto](https://bot.auto/)
- **Operational Focus**: Bot Auto employs a pure TaaS model with real shippers, proving commercial viability today rather than waiting for hypothetical future demand. Their CPM Framework provides transparency into the economics of autonomous trucking.
- **Customer Backing**: Already hauling freight for major names like J.B. Hunt, indicating trust and validation from established industry players.

## Strategic Focus
- **Scaling Commercial Operations**: Expanding fleet operations and autonomous capacity for shippers and 3PLs.
- **Technology Execution**: Continuing to deploy and refine L4 autonomous driving technology, with all development and engineering centered in Houston, Texas.
- **Talent Acquisition**: Aggressively hiring across engineering (software, machine learning, autonomy), operations (fleet maintenance, dispatch), and business functions (internships for MBA/Business roles). [Greenhouse](http://job-boards.greenhouse.io/botauto)

## Why Work Here
- **Real Impact**: Bot Auto's autonomous trucks are actively operating on Texas roads today, offering engineers the chance to work on deployed technology that is "actually driving today." [bot.auto](https://bot.auto/career)
- **Culture of Excellence**: The team is described as "the best of the best" — industry leaders who know how to execute AI transformation, with a supportive environment encouraging continuous learning. [bot.auto](https://bot.auto/career)
- **Work Arrangement**: Multiple roles are listed as "Houston, TX preferred, open to remote," offering flexibility. The company is headquartered in Houston (15310 Park Row Blvd) with a presence in the San Francisco Bay Area and Canada. [Greenhouse](http://job-boards.greenhouse.io/botauto)
- **Growth Trajectory**: With 39% annual headcount growth, a 60% increase in job postings, and a mission-driven focus on transforming transportation, the company offers significant career development opportunities.
- **Notable Perks**: The team benefits from hands-on work with cutting-edge computing, direct impact on product commercialization, and a mission with concrete economic and societal benefits.

## Sources
1. [bot.auto](https://bot.auto/)
2. [bot.auto/about](https://bot.auto/about)
3. [bot.auto/career](https://bot.auto/career)
4. [Greenhouse - Bot Auto Jobs](http://job-boards.greenhouse.io/botauto)
5. [LinkedIn - Bot Auto Company Page](https://www.linkedin.com/company/bot-auto)

## Other roles at Bot Auto

- [Software Engineer, Core Platforms](https://feeny.ai/job/software-engineer-core-platforms-bot-auto-houston-mj7edzhj9krp) — Houston, TX
- [Planning & Control Engineer, Early Career](https://feeny.ai/job/planning-control-engineer-early-career-bot-auto-houston-atqz7nbnhng2) — Houston, TX
- [Onboard Infrastructure Engineer](https://feeny.ai/job/onboard-infrastructure-engineer-bot-auto-houston-8m2m7q61acgn) — Houston, TX
- [Senior Software Engineer, Security Engineering](https://feeny.ai/job/senior-software-engineer-security-engineering-bot-auto-houston-c9f8fe4dwpq3) — Houston, TX
- [Software Engineer, Security Engineering](https://feeny.ai/job/software-engineer-security-engineering-bot-auto-houston-9pv59m5089fs) — Houston, TX
- [IT Operations Manager](https://feeny.ai/job/it-operations-manager-bot-auto-houston-pw993a7pdm0x) — Houston, TX
- [Intern, IT Specialist](https://feeny.ai/job/intern-it-specialist-bot-auto-houston-qx2nt72tay52) — Houston, TX
- [Intern, Software Engineer AI Agents (Fall/Winter 2026)](https://feeny.ai/job/intern-software-engineer-ai-agents-fall-winter-2026-bot-auto-houston-w3k81wxm0pn8) — Houston, TX
- [Senior Software Engineer, Core Platforms](https://feeny.ai/job/senior-software-engineer-core-platforms-bot-auto-houston-7shhm5790wv0) — Houston, TX
- [Senior Functional Safety Engineer](https://feeny.ai/job/senior-functional-safety-engineer-bot-auto-houston-c2kr45m4344m) — Houston, TX