Clera

Principal Robotics Software Engineer

San Francisco
Salary
$235,000 - $305,000 annually
Level
Principal
Work type
On-site · San Francisco
Visa
Not offered

Open. First seen 29 October 2026.

Apply on the company's site →

About the role

About the Role

Join the robotics team at a defense technology company developing autonomous systems to detect and counter unmanned aerial threats. This is a senior, hands-on individual contributor role focused on production robotics software running on real hardware.

What You'll Do

  • Write and own critical production C++ across the robotics stack.
  • Define and maintain system-wide timing and safety contracts from perception through control.
  • Take software from prototype to dependable field releases, including packaging, deployment, CI/CD, quality assurance, and hardware-in-the-loop testing.
  • Mentor and grow the robotics team while continuing to contribute code directly.
  • Debug hardware and field issues, including during regular range tests.

What We're Looking For

  • 10 or more years of hands-on robotics software engineering experience and a record of shipping systems.
  • Recent, hands-on production C++ experience on physical robotic systems.
  • Experience taking robotics software from prototype to repeatable use in field, operator, fleet, or customer settings.
  • System-level experience with timing, threading, latency, and reliability, as well as release processes, deployment, CI/CD, quality assurance, or hardware-in-the-loop testing.
  • Broad robotics experience across sensors, perception, tracking, control, middleware, and deployment; familiarity with sensor timestamps, time synchronization, or coordinate transforms is valuable.
  • Experience mentoring or growing a team while remaining an individual contributor.
  • ROS or ROS2 and experience with cameras, IMUs, encoders, or gimbal systems are useful. Defense, aerospace, safety-critical software, systems languages beyond C++, sensor fusion, or an active security clearance are also valuable.
  • Must meet applicable U.S. person requirements for export-controlled work.

Compensation & Benefits

Base salary: $235,000 to $305,000 annually. Visa sponsorship is not available.

Location

On-site five days per week in San Francisco, California, United States, with range days included.

What this role asks for

Particular to this role

CI/CD · ROS

Rare in Clera's other 208 open postings.

Standard for embedded / hardware roles

C++

Common in embedded / hardware postings at any company.

Compared with Clera's other open jobs.

The team: Engineering HIRES STEADILY

This role is one of 207 open in Engineering. 141 were posted in the last 30 days and the oldest in March: a team that hires all year rather than one being built.

WHAT THE TEAM WORKS WITH, ACROSS ITS POSTINGS

LLM (102 of 207), TypeScript (90 of 207), Python (82 of 207), React (77 of 207), Machine Learning (45 of 207), Supabase (37 of 207), JavaScript (36 of 207)

OTHER ROLES ON THIS TEAM

From the team and dates on Clera's own job board.

Posting history

Reposted once since 21 October 2026: a posting for this role in San Francisco was taken down and the role was posted again.

  • 29 October 2026 – open (this posting)
  • 21 October 2026 – closed 28 October 2026

See Software Engineer salaries in San Francisco →

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