Project Hydra | Senior Software Engineer - Robot Data Collection

Role Overview

We are looking for a Senior Software Engineer to own the systems that power a large-scale data collection operation, including the collection platform, operator tooling, data pipeline, and fleet infrastructure.

This is an engineering role. Day-to-day teleoperation is performed by a dedicated operator team that you direct — you build what they run on, and you own what comes out of it.

Project Details

• Location: 100% Onsite (Santa Clara, CA, US)

• Employment: Full-time W-2, Monday–Friday, 9:00 AM–5:00 PM

• Start Date: ASAP

• Contract Duration: 12-month contract with possibility of extension

• Rate: $105/hour

What You’ll Do

• Design, build, and maintain the software behind our data collection stations — teleoperation stack, multi-camera recording, and session tooling.

• Deploy and upgrade that stack across the fleet without stopping collection; keep workstations, containers, and networking healthy.

• Own the data pipeline end to end: automated validation, conversion into our dataset format, upload, metadata, and versioning.

• Build the QA tooling that catches dropped frames, stream desync, bad calibration, and mislabeled episodes before data reaches training.

• Direct a team of teleoperators — define task protocols and SOPs, onboard them on new tasks and embodiments, review session quality, and unblock them daily.

• Own fleet reliability: calibration and firmware pipelines, sensor and end-effector integration, root-cause analysis of recurring faults, and vendor escalation.

• Bring up new stations and new embodiments; report throughput, yield, and data health to the research team.

What we need to see

• MS in CS, Robotics, EE/ME, or a related field (or BS with equivalent hands-on experience).

• 3+ years building software for real robot systems — not simulation only.

• A system you designed and shipped that other people depended on daily, and that you kept running.

• Strong Python and Linux; Docker, git, CI, and SSH-based fleet administration.

• Robot middleware and real-time multi-sensor recording — ROS 2 or equivalent vendor SDKs.

• Experience supporting a data collection or teleoperation operation: you have built the tools operators depend on and owned throughput and quality numbers.

• Comfortable around robot hardware — arms or humanoids, dexterous hands, RGB-D cameras, and the calibration that keeps them honest.

• Able to lead operators without formal authority: you write clear SOPs, train people, and communicate status without being asked.

Ways to stand out from the crowd

• Humanoid or bimanual platforms (Unitree, Fourier, ALOHA/ARX-class rigs) and dexterous hands.

• XR teleoperation: Quest / PICO / Vision Pro, motion-capture gloves, whole-body retargeting.

• Imitation-learning data tooling — LeRobot, HDF5/Zarr episode stores, dataset versioning, S3 at TB–PB scale.