Founding Engineer (AI | Robotics)

About the role

This role is the first in-house engineer joining Sierra Studio at a pivotal moment as we redefine in-home care through AI. You will own the end-to-end technical validation of our platform, turning ambiguous questions about sensors, models, and devices into concrete evidence within days. A large portion of your week will involve writing production and prototype code across the entire stack to prove concepts and ship MVPs that directly inform product direction. You will act as the primary technical reference for the engineering partner and the go-to person for the CEO when critical technical decisions need fast, reliable answers. This position involves running hands-on experiments with robotics, evaluating on-device feasibility, and determining whether we build, buy, or integrate key components for our care platform. You will directly influence our product trajectory by building internal tools, automation, and integrations that allow a small team to move quickly and execute against real user data. The role is designed for someone who thrives on ownership, enjoys connecting raw data to real-world outcomes, and is comfortable being the sole expert in ambiguous domains while helping the company scale its technical foundation.

Key facts

What you'll do

• Write production and prototype code across the stack to turn high-level product ideas into working software quickly.
• Stand up MVPs and working demos in days, then validate them with real data or real users before committing significant engineering resources.
• Build internal tools and lightweight automation that amplify the impact of a small engineering team.
• Ship integrations with the devices, sensors, and third-party services that Grace depends on in real care environments.
• Take open technical questions around new models, hardware, or open source stacks and convert them into working evidence with measurable results.
• Run experiments end to end, including scoping, building, measuring outcomes, documenting findings, and recommending clear next steps to leadership.
• Experiment with robotics hands-on, spending time in the lab with humanoid systems and evaluating what actually works in home-like settings.
• Evaluate build versus buy versus integrate decisions for core platform components and defend those recommendations with data.
• Answer day-to-day technical questions from the CEO and business teams directly, without relying on engineering managers or translation layers.
• Provide honest assessments of feasibility, effort, and risk so that roadmap conversations remain grounded in technical reality.
• Push back on scope creep and unrealistic timelines when ambitions exceed resourcing, raising concerns early and constructively.
• Support the creation of technical narratives and materials for decks and fundraising that clearly communicate our capabilities and progress.

Requirements

• 5+ years building software professionally, with a track record of shipping products that real people use and depend on.
• Strong hands-on engineering skills, writing code every day and remaining comfortable across the full stack when necessary.
• Practical AI/ML fluency, including experience with LLMs, speech systems, or perception pipelines and an understanding of where they break in practice.
• Experience taking a product from zero to a working first version in an environment with incomplete information and no dedicated team around you.
• Excellent written and verbal communication, able to explain complex technical tradeoffs to non-technical stakeholders clearly and without jargon.
• Autonomy and ownership, thriving in an environment without a pre-groomed backlog and being consistently right about priorities with limited guidance.
• Willing and able to travel to the US a couple of times a year to work hands-on with the team and hardware as robotics activities increase.
• Comfort operating in fast-moving, ambiguous startup conditions where priorities shift and problems are open-ended.
• A bias toward action, choosing to build working evidence quickly rather than delaying decisions in search of perfect information.

Nice to have

• Experience with robotics, humanoids, embodied AI, or IoT and connected devices in real-world or home environments.
• Comfort with hardware-adjacent work such as edge deployment, audio pipelines, sensors, and on-device inference.
• Experience working alongside distributed engineering teams across time zones and cultures.
• Background in early-stage startups where you have worn many hats and owned outcomes beyond your formal job description.
• Product instinct, including the ability to form opinions about what should be built, not only how to build it once requirements are fixed.
• Experience contributing to open source projects relevant to speech, perception, or robotic control stacks used in care settings.
• Familiarity with regulatory and privacy considerations in connected health environments, including data minimization and secure handling of sensitive signals.
• Any prior work deploying AI systems in safety-critical or high-stakes environments where reliability and explainability are essential.

Practical notes

• Location is Brazil with remote work arrangement.
• Travel to the US is expected a couple of times per year for hands-on collaboration.
• Visa sponsorship considerations should be discussed directly if applicable.
• The role may evolve into technical leadership as the team scales, with opportunities to hire and lead other engineers over time.