Head of Software Architecture, Embodied AI Platform

About the Role

This is a hands-on leadership role owning the end-to-end architecture of an agentic SaaS platform that manages and operates general-purpose humanoid robots at fleet scale. Reporting directly to the CTO, you will set the technical foundation while growing a software platform team from roughly 10 to 15+ engineers. The work sits at the intersection of distributed cloud systems, edge robotics, and AI, making it one of the most technically expansive roles in the embodied-AI space today.

What You'll Do

• Design and own the full platform architecture spanning robot connectivity, fleet management, AI and agentic features, data pipelines, and model training workflows as one coherent system.

• Set technical direction across frontend, backend, robot-side, and infrastructure, making key architectural decisions as the team scales.

• Stay hands-on writing and reviewing production code, especially during early architecture phases where foundational abstractions are critical.

• Architect how AI agent capabilities (chatbots, agentic behaviors, and fleet-data learning loops) integrate safely into the platform with appropriate guardrails for physical robots.

• Grow and lead the software platform team, establishing engineering standards and architecture review processes.

What We're Looking For

• 10+ years architecting and delivering SaaS platforms that manage or control physical hardware devices at scale.

• Deep experience designing distributed systems that span edge devices, cloud infrastructure, and frontend surfaces (connected-device or IoT ecosystems, fleet management, or similar).

• Staff or principal-level platform architecture background, with ownership of multi-team system decisions, not just component-level work.

• Currently writes production code regularly as part of daily work, not solely design or documentation.

• Comfort with technologies such as WebSockets, gRPC, pub/sub messaging, real-time communication protocols, API design, and OTA update pipelines.

• Experience building or integrating AI agentic systems, including chatbots, tool use, and multi-step planning workflows.

• Early-stage startup experience, or experience as a first architecture hire making greenfield infrastructure decisions.

• Actively uses AI tools and modern development practices in daily workflow.

• Strong computer science fundamentals, backed by a CS or related technical degree.

• Based in or willing to relocate to the Santa Clara, CA area. No visa sponsorship is available.

Compensation & Benefits

Base salary: $250,000 to $400,000 USD annually. Equity participation is part of the total compensation package. No visa sponsorship is available for this role.

Location

On-site in Santa Clara, California, USA.