Staff Systems Engineer - Perception

Apptronik is a human-centered robotics company developing AI-powered robots to support humanity in every facet of life. Our flagship humanoid robot, Apollo, is built to collaborate thoughtfully with people, starting with critical industries such as manufacturing and logistics, with future applications in healthcare, the home, and beyond. We operate at the cutting edge of embodied AI, applying our expertise across the full robotics stack to solve some of society's most important problems. You will join a team dedicated to bringing Apollo to market at scale, tackling the complex challenges like safety, commercialization, and mass production to change the world for the better.

The Role

Apptronik is seeking a Staff Systems Engineer to own the system-level architecture, requirements, and performance of Apollo’s perception suite. In this role, you are the technical connective tissue between the Autonomy software team and the Hardware engineering teams. You will translate high-level autonomy capabilities (e.g., "the robot must safely grasp a moving object" or "navigate a cluttered warehouse") into rigorous, verifiable system requirements (latency budgets, field-of-view mapping, resolution, and compute allocation). As a Staff-level leader, you will drive complex trade studies, define Interface Control Documents (ICDs), establish the Verification and Validation (V&V) strategy, and ensure the perception system meets the stringent functional safety standards required for a humanoid robot operating alongside humans.

Key Responsibilities

Architecture & Trade Studies

• System Architecture: Define the top-level architecture for the robot's perception system, balancing the needs of Visual-Inertial Odometry (VIO), manipulation, obstacle avoidance, and remote teleoperation.
• Trade Studies: Lead data-driven trade studies to adjudicate complex architectural decisions (e.g., Stereo Vision vs. LiDAR for close-range manipulation, edge-compute vs. centralized processing, global vs. rolling shutter).
• Budget Ownership: Own and manage critical system budgets, including photon-to-action latency, compute utilization (TOPS), memory bandwidth, and spatial Field of View (FOV) coverage.

Requirements & Interfaces

• Requirements Flow-Down: Elicit, define, and manage perception system requirements using enterprise tools (e.g., Jama, Polarion, or DOORS). Decompose product-level goals into strict hardware and software specifications.
• Interface Management: Author and maintain Interface Control Documents (ICDs) that define the boundaries between perception sensors, the compute cluster, and the autonomy software stack. Ensure complete alignment across multi-disciplinary teams.

Verification, Validation & Safety

• V&V Strategy: Architect the master Verification and Validation plan for the perception stack.