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 6 November 2026.

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About the role

About the Role

Join a defense technology team developing autonomous robotic systems for countering unmanned aircraft. As the most senior individual contributor on the robotics team, you will write critical production code and help ensure the system performs reliably on real hardware.

What You'll Do

  • Write and own production C++ across the robotics software stack.
  • Establish timing and safety contracts across perception, tracking, control, and autonomy.
  • Turn prototype software into repeatable field releases through packaging, deployment, CI/CD, quality assurance, and hardware-in-the-loop testing.
  • Mentor and grow the robotics team while remaining hands-on with code.
  • Debug hardware and field issues, including during regular range tests.

What We're Looking For

  • At least 10 years of hands-on robotics software engineering experience, with shipped systems and recent coding experience.
  • Production C++ experience on physical robotic systems, with breadth across sensors, perception, tracking, control, middleware, and deployment.
  • Experience taking a robotics stack from prototype to repeatable use in field, operator, fleet, or customer settings.
  • Experience owning system-wide timing, threading, and latency, and building release, CI/CD, quality assurance, or hardware-in-the-loop processes.
  • Experience mentoring or growing a team while continuing to code as an individual contributor.
  • Familiarity with ROS or ROS2, cameras, IMUs, encoders, or gimbal systems is useful. Defense, aerospace, or safety-critical software experience and an active security clearance are also valued.
  • Must be a U.S. Person due to export control requirements.

Compensation & Benefits

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

Location

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

What this role asks for

Particular to this role

CI/CD · ROS

Rare in Clera's other 182 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 357 open in Engineering. 225 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 (181 of 357), TypeScript (179 of 357), React (155 of 357), Python (150 of 357), Machine Learning (75 of 357), Supabase (73 of 357), PostgreSQL (69 of 357)

OTHER ROLES ON THIS TEAM

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

Posting history

Reposted 2 times since 21 October 2026: a posting for this role in San Francisco was taken down and the role was posted again.

See Software Engineer salaries in San Francisco →

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