--- title: 'Staff Firmware Engineer at Watney' canonical: 'https://feeny.ai/job/staff-firmware-engineer-watney-san-francisco-77pan28rddj1' type: 'job' last_seen: '2026-10-17' --- # Staff Firmware Engineer at Watney - **Company:** Watney - **Location:** San Francisco, CA - **Employment:** full-time - **Work type:** onsite - **Posted:** 2026-10-17 - **Last confirmed live:** 2026-10-17 - **Apply:** https://jobs.ashbyhq.com/watney/4e478c24-8da8-48d3-8257-72c4d36004d9 ## Job description ## Our Mission Expand human ambition in the physical world. Critical infrastructure is constrained by labor shortages, hazardous working conditions, and operational complexity. Watney builds and deploys autonomous robotic systems that increase the speed and capacity of buildout, starting with data centers. ## About the Role At Watney, firmware engineers write the firmware for our robots’ mainboards and actuators, and bring up new boards with our manufacturing partners. They work with our mechanical, electrical, and ML teams as new sensors and embodiments arrive. How far firmware can take a robot on its own is still an open question: which faults a board can recover from without a person, and how one design carries across new boards and embodiments. The firmware you write sets how reliable and safe every robot is. The architecture bets you make carry into every robot we build after this one. ## What You’ll Do - Lead board bring-up with our manufacturing partners, from specification discovery through first boot. - Write the drivers and hardware abstraction layers that run on our microcontrollers and actuators. - Build and run automated hardware-in-the-loop tests across embodiments. - Build the common firmware base for mainboards and actuators, in Rust and C. - Work with the ML and mechanical teams to prototype and validate new sensors. You May Be a Good Fit If You: - Have shipped production firmware to millions of devices. - Have written production firmware in Rust, C, or both. - Have debugged communication buses on real hardware. - Have built or operated hardware-in-the-loop test infrastructure. - Have worked with contract manufacturers or OEMs to turn ambiguous requirements into a board layout. - Have worked with electromechanical systems or cameras and optics, electrically, mechanically, or in software. - Have working knowledge of electrical engineering and either field-oriented control or RF. We’re committed to building a diverse, inclusive team. At Watney Robotics, we welcome people of all backgrounds and identities, and we make hiring decisions based on skills, experience, and potential. If you’re passionate about robotics but don’t meet every requirement, we still encourage you to apply! Curious to learn more? Follow us here on [X](https://x.com/watneyrobotics/) and [LinkedIn](https://www.linkedin.com/company/watneyrobotics/about/) ## About Watney ## Company Overview - **One-liner**: Develops autonomous robotics systems to operate datacenter and supercomputing infrastructure, partnering with hyperscalers to accelerate compute scaling. - **Entity Type**: Private (Seed stage) - **Headquarters**: San Francisco, California, United States - **Founded**: 2024 - **Founders**: Ryan Gannon (Co-Founder), Sean Cheong (Co-Founder) ## Core Business - **Primary industry**: Robotics Engineering / Datacenter Infrastructure Automation - **Target customers**: Hyperscale cloud providers and large-scale data center operators (Enterprise B2B) - **Mission or purpose statement**: “Deploy an abundant, intelligent workforce” by enabling the growth of critical infrastructure through autonomous robots. ## Products & Services - **Autonomous Datacenter Robotics Platform**: A fleet of autonomous robots designed for datacenter buildout and breakfix operations. The system handles physical tasks such as server installation, cable management, maintenance, and repair, reducing human labor and accelerating deployment timelines. ## Market Standing - **Valuation/Market Cap**: Not publicly available - **Key Metric** (Private): **$21.0M in total funding** (Seed round closed May 30, 2025) - **Notable Investors/Partners**: Conviction, Abstract, A* (A-star). Partners with the world’s largest hyperscalers (names not disclosed). - **Growth Signals**: - Headcount grew **183.3% year-over-year** to 11 employees (as of mid-2026) - Monthly headcount growth of **+6.2%** - Active job postings rose **+28.6% month-over-month** and **+350% quarter-over-quarter** - Currently hiring for 9 roles spanning engineering, operations, and strategy ## Competitive Advantages - **Deep domain focus**: Solely dedicated to datacenter and supercomputing infrastructure – a narrow, high-stakes vertical with massive scaling demand. - **Elite founding team**: Includes former GSM for iPhone, former founding engineer at Worldcoin, and a builder of the world’s fastest EV racecar (ETH Zurich). - **Early partnerships with hyperscalers**: Already working with the largest cloud providers, providing critical validation and a clear path to production. - **Full-stack ownership**: Company is moving from prototype to production fleets, offering engineers end-to-end impact from hardware to software. ## Strategic Focus - **Scale from prototype to production fleets**: Transitioning from small-scale deployments to large autonomous fleets. - **Deepen hyperscaler partnerships**: Expand contracts and joint development roadmaps with major cloud providers. - **Grow engineering and operations teams**: Aggressively hiring across robotics, software, facilities management, and deployment strategy to support production scaling. ## Why Work Here - **In-Office culture**: All roles are based in San Francisco (HQ); the company emphasizes in-person collaboration. - **Ground-floor opportunity**: With outsized ownership and visibility, employees shape the “rollout playbook” for a category-defining robotics company. - **Technical challenge**: Work on real systems that combine robotics, AI, hardware, and infrastructure at scale. - **Notable peers**: Colleagues include alumni from Scale AI, Amazon Web Services, Tools for Humanity, Warburg Pincus, and the US Army Corps of Engineers. - **Growth trajectory**: A very young company (founded 2024) with rapid hiring and clear product-market fit, ideal for early-stage career builders. ## Sources 1. [watneyrobotics.com](https://watneyrobotics.com/) 2. [linkedin.com/company/watneyrobotics](https://www.linkedin.com/company/watneyrobotics) 3. [builtin.com/company/watney-robotics-inc](https://builtin.com/company/watney-robotics-inc) 4. [startups.gallery/companies/watney](https://startups.gallery/companies/watney) ## Other roles at Watney - [Senior Software Engineer - Tools](https://feeny.ai/job/senior-software-engineer-tools-watney-san-francisco-6qvk06g0vr02) — San Francisco, CA - [Staff Software Engineer - Infrastructure](https://feeny.ai/job/staff-software-engineer-infrastructure-watney-san-francisco-2r2gk3w7qvkb) — San Francisco, CA - [Senior Manufacturing Engineer](https://feeny.ai/job/senior-manufacturing-engineer-watney-san-francisco-e11y199wtagm) — San Francisco, CA - [Senior Mechanical Engineer - Robotics](https://feeny.ai/job/senior-mechanical-engineer-robotics-watney-san-francisco-tazxw9ea9ds5) — San Francisco, CA - [Senior Research Engineer](https://feeny.ai/job/senior-research-engineer-watney-san-francisco-kfgw3dy7m4eb) — San Francisco, CA - [Machine Learning Engineer](https://feeny.ai/job/machine-learning-engineer-watney-san-francisco-k9y1d6h7xdnv) — San Francisco, CA - [Staff Machine Learning Engineer](https://feeny.ai/job/staff-machine-learning-engineer-watney-san-francisco-t8stgn4p7ad8) — San Francisco, CA - [Program Manager, Teleoperations](https://feeny.ai/job/program-manager-teleoperations-watney-san-francisco-c0zedeb0sc5r) — San Francisco, CA - [Staff Program Manager, Teleoperations](https://feeny.ai/job/staff-program-manager-teleoperations-watney-san-francisco-w7qah1bzn6xd) — San Francisco, CA - [Operations Lead](https://feeny.ai/job/operations-lead-watney-san-francisco-be77taz7js4n) — San Francisco, CA