Founding Engineer, R&D

Founding Engineer, R&D

As a Founding Engineer you will be a core part of the team creating a robot that must survive long durations in cramped, dark, dirty, and hazardous industrial environments and eventually scale to thousands of units. Your work bridges complex robotics and the human user, from refining internal assemblies for clarity and serviceability to designing intuitive control interfaces for extreme environments.

We value engineers who understand that clean, intentional design goes a long way.

• Design, manufacture, and assemble robotic components.
• Select, test, and integrate sensors for robotic perception & navigation.
• Design and build test facilities for the robots, and then test them.
• Develop and refine algorithms for novel robotic controls in confined environments.
• UI/UX controller integration.
• 3D data reconstruction and visualization.
• Help improve manufacturing processes for reliability and repeatability.

We are looking for founding generalist engineers with 2+ years of workrekli and foundational knowledge in hardware, mechanical, or software disciplines. Deep expertise in one core discipline below is preferred.

• Mechanical:
  • Intuitive understanding of material, structural暂无, and mechanical system behavior.
  • CAD fluency (preferably OnShape) with experience in DFM, GD&T.
  • Manufacturing experience (CNC, additive, composites, molds).
  • Prototyping and a fast iterative (build, test, fail) approach.
  • Strong hands‑on experience building or repairing mechanical/electrical systems (robotics, drones, RC vehicles, automotive, maker projects, etc.).
  • Experience with environmental testing and building out testing equipment.
• Software:
  • Creating an intuitive UI/UX interface for both front and back‑end.
  • History in professional software environments and industry workflows.
  • Experience with 3D data reconstruction, such as Gaussian splatting.
  • Obsession with fusing both functionality and aesthetic form within a design (software & hardware).
• Robotics:
  • Developing electro‑mechanical systems (robots).
  • Proficient in C++ and Python, with ROS1/ROS2 experience in Linux.
  • UI/UX design for controlling networked robotic systems.
  • Experience building RC vehicles, flight controllers, and motor controls.
  • Experience integrating sensors and peripherals over standard embedded-sized communication protocols.
  • Soldering, PCB work, and design experience.
  • Understanding of RF communications, protocols, and limitations.

• Technical versatility:
  Deep expertise in one core discipline (mechanical, electrical, or software) but proficient enough to dive deep into others.
• Background:
  Ideally a Bachelor’s, Master’s, or Ph.D. in Engineering (ME, EE, CS), Robotics, or a related field. However, this isn’t necessary.
• Design‑minded:
  You believe that "how it looks" and "how it feels" are just as important as "how it works." You take pride in clean wiring, clean code, and clean interfaces.
• Driven by curiosity:
  You build complex things for fun in your free time and love to educate others on problems and solutions.

Compensation: $100K/yr - $180K/yr + Equity + Benefits. Drover Labs cares deeply about your time, and while we will want to spend time getting to know you during the interview process, project work or on‑site interviews are compensated on a paid hourly basis. We reto the foundation of our company to investing in what’s most important—you.