Robotics Engineer

About Lightberry

Lightberry builds the software layer for expressive, interactive robots. We combine voice AI, perception, and behavior systems so robots can understand people and respond naturally.

We are a small, hands-on team based in San Francisco, working across software, hardware, design, and research to turn new capabilities into robots people can interact with today.

We care about thoughtful craft, fast iteration, and shipping real systems into the world.

Robots with Souls

Yep, you read that right.

Robots are here, but they ship with no software. They’re all mute, deaf, and blind out of the box. The only way to get the robot to do anything is to write code. This is insane.

We want robots to behave like in the movies: proactive, caring, aware.

The role

This is the same Robotics Engineer role we hire seniors for — minus the years. You’ll write low-latency, high-frequency code that runs on real robots, from week one.

We don’t expect you to know everything. We expect you to learn absurdly fast, and the role is built around that: six months from now, parts of the robot should be yours.

What you’ll do

Write code that runs locally on the robot — perception, motion, expression — with an experienced engineer reviewing everything you ship.
Own a real piece of the robot within your first six months.
Profile, test, and debug on real hardware every day.
Learn in the open: ask questions, demo often, break things in the lab and fix them.

What’s needed

We don’t care about GPAs or brand-name internships. Show us what you’ve built — class projects, hacks, robots in your garage. We do need:

Fundamentals. You’re strong on the basics — data structures, memory, concurrency — and you can reason about why something is slow.
Curiosity. The skills you’re missing today, you’ll have in six months. That’s the deal: we teach, you learn fast.
AI-native. It’s 2026. We won’t force AI tools on you, but we expect you to learn to get the best out of them — they’re a real multiplier, and people who skip them get left behind.
Fun. You write code because you love it — side projects, open source, that tool you built just because.

Bonus points

Robots. Robotics club, drone builds, RC hacks — you’ve made something move.
Deep cuts. You’ve poked below the surface: game engines, kernels, microcontrollers.

One last thing…

Don’t apply if…

You can’t stand chaos
You’d work remotely every day if you could
You’re not a people-person
You’re pessimistic about tech, AI, and the future

Apply if…

You want to do your life’s work
You care about developing and expressing your craft
You love intense, fast-paced environments
You like getting your hands dirty, no work is beneath you
Life’s short, why work on B2B AI SAAS infra slop when you could work on speaking robots?