Systems Engineer - Autonomous Robotics

Lucid Bots is an AI robotics company building the world’s most productive and responsible robots. Our mission is simple: extend human reach. We design intelligent machines that take on dangerous, demanding, and repetitive work—so people don’t have to.

Headquartered in Charlotte, North Carolina, we design, engineer, manufacture, and support our products in the United States. Our production-ready robots are deployed by customers around the world to improve safety, increase productivity, and elevate operational standards.

We are one of the fastest-growing manufacturing companies in the United States, recently ranked fourth nationally. Backed by leading investors including Y Combinator (S19), Cubit Capital, Idea Fund Partners, Danu Ventures, and others, we are scaling quickly at the intersection of AI, hardware, and real-world impact.

We’re building more than robots—we’re building the future of physical AI.

At Lucid Bots, we’re building something extraordinary - and how we work matters just as much as what we build. These values guide how we hire, grow, and show up for one another.

• Expedition Behavior - We climb as one. No silos, no “that’s not my job.” We protect the team and share the load.

• Grow with Humility - We’re relentless learners. We seek feedback, own mistakes, and get better every day.

• Lift People Up - Humans come first. We care fiercely, speak honestly, and design for real people in real conditions.

• Build the Extraordinary - We take ownership, reject the ordinary, and run toward hard problems.

We live Above the Line: we take responsibility, create solutions, and shape the future.
If these values energize you, you’ll thrive here. If they feel like too much, this may not be the right climb - and that’s okay.

We’re hiring a Systems Engineer to own system-level alignment across our robotic platforms.

This is classical systems engineering — not IT, not DevOps. You will define how hardware and software come together, ensure every requirement is measurable, and prevent integration failures before they happen.

You are the person who makes sure the entire system works — not just the parts.

• Ensure all engineering teams are building to a shared, testable system definition
  Translate product requirements into clear, quantified engineering specifications and maintain system architecture and interface documentation
• Eliminate integration surprises before they occur
  Own hardware/software interface control and evaluate all cross-team changes for system-wide impact before release
• Establish disciplined engineering execution across the product lifecycle
  Define and enforce design gate reviews (PDR, CDR, DVT, PVT) with clear entry/exit criteria
• Guarantee that every requirement is verifiable and validated
  Define acceptance criteria and system-level test procedures; maintain full requirements traceability from definition through verification
• Keep hardware and software development tracks aligned and converging
  Partner closely with hardware and software leads to manage dependencies, risks, and trade-offs across teams
• Close the gap between simulation and real-world performance
  Quantify system-level discrepancies and drive improvements that ensure field reliability

• 5–8 years of systems engineering experience on shipped electromechanical or robotic products
• Experience owning or maintaining hardware/software interface specifications (ICDs)
• Strong background in requirements definition, decomposition, and validation
• Experience with formal design reviews (PDR/CDR or equivalent)
• Ability to understand mechanical, electrical, and software systems at a working level
• Experience in robotics or complex hardware systems preferred

• Systems administrators or DevOps engineers
• Candidates without experience on physical products
• Engineers who prefer loosely defined requirements over structured execution

• Work directly with the founder of a fast-growing, venture-backed robotics startup.
• Be part of a team solving real-world problems with frontier technology.
• Get a front-row seat to fundraising, company building, and startup strategy at scale.
• Learn more in one year than most people do in five—this is a career accelerant.
• Help support the culture, pace, and systems of a company scaling fast and building things that matter.

• Health, dental, and vision insurance
• 3% retirement match
• 15 days of paid time off (PTO)
• 3 sick days 
• 11 paid holidays, with 3 of those being floating holidays
• Employee stock option plan

1. Why here? Why are you excited about Lucid Bots specifically?
2. Why you? What is the one thing about you that a resume can’t capture?