Senior Systems Engineer, Future Robot Platforms

About the role

Zoox is looking for a Senior Systems Engineer to help shape the future of robot platforms. This role centers on building and refining the systems that form the backbone of autonomous mobility products. The position is located in Foster City, California, and is a full-time engagement within the company. The engineer will collaborate with cross-functional teams to advance platform capabilities and support long-term product development goals. The work involves defining system-level requirements, evaluating architectural approaches, and driving decisions that impact the reliability and performance of autonomous platforms. The engineer will also participate in cross-team planning sessions and contribute to the technical vision for future autonomous mobility products.

Key facts

What you'll do

• Lead the design and integration of system-level architectures for future autonomous platforms and products.
• Define technical roadmaps that guide platform evolution and feature prioritization across multiple engineering teams.
• Partner with hardware and software teams to ensure cohesive system-level decision-making and alignment throughout development.
• Evaluate trade-offs between performance, reliability, and scalability when making critical platform design and implementation choices.
• Conduct system-level analysis to identify bottlenecks and opportunities for improvement in existing platform architectures and workflows.
• Drive the development of reusable frameworks and abstractions that accelerate future platform work across the organization.
• Coordinate with product and research groups to translate high-level goals into concrete technical specifications and plans.
• Mentor junior engineers and contribute to a culture of technical excellence, rigor, and continuous learning within the team.
• Own critical system components from concept through implementation, testing, integration, and deployment phases in production environments.
• Document architectural decisions and communicate rationale clearly to stakeholders across the organization to ensure shared understanding.
• Participate in design reviews and provide constructive feedback on system-level proposals and approaches from fellow engineers.
• Collaborate with operations teams to ensure platform designs support production readiness and field deployment requirements effectively.
• Support the evaluation of new technologies and emerging approaches that could enhance future robot platform capabilities and performance.

Requirements

• Demonstrated experience in systems engineering with a focus on complex, multi-domain technical challenges and problem solving.
• Strong understanding of system architecture principles and the ability to apply them to real-world platform development.
• Effective communication skills for conveying technical concepts to both engineering and non-engineering audiences with clarity.
• Experience working collaboratively across hardware, software, and operations disciplines in a fast-paced and dynamic environment.
• Ability to manage multiple workstreams simultaneously while maintaining attention to detail and consistent quality standards.
• A degree in a relevant technical field or equivalent practical experience in systems design and engineering.
• Proven track record of delivering system-level solutions that meet performance, reliability, and scalability targets consistently.
• Comfort with ambiguity and the ability to make informed technical decisions with incomplete or evolving information.
• Self-directed approach to problem-solving with a strong sense of ownership, accountability, and follow-through on commitments.
• Familiarity with autonomous vehicle or robotics domains is a valuable asset in this senior engineering role.

Nice to have

• Prior experience with autonomous driving or robotics platform development in a production or commercial environment.
• Familiarity with real-time operating systems and embedded systems design methodologies and engineering best practices.
• Background in safety-critical system design and formal verification processes for complex and regulated technical systems.
• Experience contributing to open-source projects or publishing technical work in relevant professional engineering communities.

Skills & tools

• Systems modeling and analysis techniques for understanding complex platform behavior, interactions, and performance characteristics.
• Proficiency with programming languages commonly used in systems-level development and automation scripting tasks.
• Experience with version control systems and collaborative software development workflows across distributed engineering teams.
• Knowledge of networking protocols and distributed systems concepts relevant to platform infrastructure and communications.
• Familiarity with continuous integration and delivery pipelines for systems software, firmware, and embedded components.
• Understanding of hardware-software co-design principles and their practical application to autonomous platform products.

Practical notes

• This is a full-time position based in Foster City, California, with regular in-office attendance expected as part of the team.
• The hiring process may include multiple technical interviews, system design exercises, and team fit conversations with engineering leaders.
• Candidates should be prepared to discuss past systems engineering projects and the measurable impact of their contributions on outcomes.
• Zoox is an equal opportunity employer and considers all qualified applicants without regard to background, identity, or protected characteristics.
• The role reports to a senior engineering manager and is part of the broader platform engineering group at Zoox.

About the company

Zoox is building the world's most advanced self-driving hardware and software solution. The efficiency demands of such a system require an expert fine tuning of both the compute hardware architecture as well as the algorithms and middleware that runs on it to achieve maximum throughput at the most optimal power levels.