Senior Principal Systems Engineer

A Moving Experience

Senior Principal Systems Engineer – Humanoid Robotics

Location: California Bay Area

Physical AI is transforming how humans interact with intelligent machines. At Cerence, we are extending our leadership in Voice AI and Conversational Intelligence into Humanoid Robotics, building software platforms that enable robots to understand, reason, communicate, and act in the real world.

Role Overview

The Senior Principal Technical Solution Architect owns the end-to-end software architecture for our humanoid robot applications. You will bridge the gap between cutting-edge AI, robotic operating systems, and physical hardware. In this role, you will guide critical technical decisions, manage physical system constraints, and supervise an agile, high-performing startup development team.

Your Impact

• Own the end-to-end application architecture for humanoid robots.
• Define reusable software platforms spanning robotics, AI, voice, cloud, and edge systems.
• Lead technical decisions involving robotics frameworks, operating systems, SDKs, AI infrastructure, and deployment architectures.
• Guide proof-of-concepts into production-ready customer deployments.
• Collaborate with robotics OEMs, technology partners, and cross-functional engineering teams.

Key Responsibilities

System Architecture: Design scalable, modular software architectures for humanoid robot applications.

Tech Stack Selection: Evaluate and select robotic software frameworks, developer SDKs, etc.

Hardware-Software Co-design: Collaborate closely with mechanical and electrical teams to optimize system latency, compute allocation, thermal envelopes, battery utilization, and power budgets.

Platform Reuse: Drive a platform strategy enabling modular reuse of application logic across different physical robot forms.

AI & Agentic Systems: Define how foundation models, agentic orchestration frameworks, memory systems, multimodal AI, and reasoning engines integrate into robot applications.

Production Readiness: Ensure deployed solutions meet reliability, observability, maintainability, security, and operational requirements.

Team Supervision: Lead, mentor, and unblock a small, fast-moving startup team of developers.

Required Skills & Experience

Mandatory (Must Have)

• Robotics Domains: Deep understanding of Navigation & Localization (SLAM, Nav2), Manipulation & Motion Planning (MoveIt2), Perception Pipelines, Sensor Fusion, Robot Middleware, DDS communication, and distributed robotics architectures.
• Systems Engineering: Proven experience designing cyber-physical systems operating under compute limitations, thermal constraints, battery optimization, network intermittency, and fail-safe operational requirements.
• Programming: Advanced C++ (17/20) and Python architectural design expertise.
• Operating Systems: Strong mastery of Linux (Ubuntu/Debian), containerized deployments, and embedded computing platforms.
• Leadership: 3+ years managing engineering teams in startup, R&D, robotics, or fast-paced product development environments.
• Experience: 8+ years in robotics, autonomous systems, industrial automation, physical AI, or complex cyber-physical environments.

Good to Have (Highly Valued Plus)

• Real-Time Linux: PREEMPT_RT and deterministic kernel environments.
• Microcontroller RTOS: Zephyr RTOS, FreeRTOS or low-level embedded control platforms.
• Developer SDKs & Simulation: NVIDIA Isaac SDK, Isaac Sim, Omniverse, Gazebo, Webots, Intel RealSense.
• Safety & Compliance: ISO 13849, IEC 61508, IEC 62443 and Human-Robot Interaction safety requirements.
• AI & Foundation Models: Experience integrating LLMs, VLMs, agentic workflows, multimodal reasoning and edge AI inference platforms.

Why Join the Team

• Help define the future of Voice AI for Physical AI and Humanoid Robotics.
• Influence product direction, platform strategy, and customer deployments.
• Work across Robotics, Agentic AI, Voice AI, Edge AI, and Cloud Platforms.
• Operate with startup agility backed by Cerence technology and brand.

Education & Qualifications

• Bachelor's or Master's degree in Computer Science, Robotics, Software Engineering, Electrical Engineering, or a related discipline.

What we offer

• We offer a generous compensation and benefits package (in addition to the base salary), including:
• Salary range $192,500.00 - $290,000.00 USD It is not typical for offers to be made at or near the top of the range. The actual salary will be determined based on experience and other job-related factors.
• Annual bonus opportunity
• Insurance coverage (medical, dental, vision, life, and disability)
• Paid time off
• Paid holidays
• Company contribution to the RRSP (Registered Retirement Savings Plan)
• Equity awards for certain positions and levels
• Remote and/or hybrid work available depending on the position All compensation and benefits are subject to the terms and conditions of the underlying plans or programs, as applicable, and may be amended, terminated, or replaced from time to time.

About Cerence

Cerence is a global leader in conversational AI and voice technologies. We are expanding our innovations beyond automotive into robotics and physical AI, creating intelligent systems that interact naturally with people across industries and environments.

Equal Opportunity Employer

Cerence is committed to providing equal employment opportunities and creating an inclusive environment for all employees.