Join Contoro Robotics - Revolutionizing Warehouse Automation with Cutting-Edge Robotics
At
Contoro Robotics, we're on a mission to solve labor challenges through advanced robotic solutions. Headquartered in
Austin, TX, our fast-growing startup is transforming the supply chain industry with our flagship warehouse automation technology. Our team is made up of top-tier experts in
robotics, AI, and logistics, working together to push the boundaries of automation.
We're looking for
talented and ambitious individuals to join us on this journey-helping shape the future of robotics while growing alongside a world-class team. If you're passionate about innovation, problem-solving, and making a real-world impact, we want to hear from you!
Robotics Engineer, Motion Planning
Contoro Robotics is an Austin-based company building autonomous truck-unloading robots for warehouse operations. We deploy reliable, high-throughput robotic systems that handle heavy, unstructured freight in real logistics settings every day.
The Role
We are looking for a Robotics Engineer to help improve the reliability and performance of our robot's motion-planning stack on a live production fleet. A significant part of this role is hands-on production support: reproducing field issues, debugging them across motion planning, perception, and controls, and validating fixes on real hardware. You will work closely with our senior motion-planning and autonomy engineers, tuning and integrating motion planning as you grow your depth in the field.
Responsibilities
Production Debugging and Performance Support
- Investigate and help resolve production issues that affect cycle time, pick success, and operator intervention rate, working across motion planning, perception, and controls to find root cause.
- Reproduce field failures on real hardware, analyze logs and telemetry, and work with senior engineers to validate root cause and ship fixes.
Motion Planning Implementation and Integration
- Implement and tune planners within the MoveIt ecosystem for collision-free, kinematically feasible motion, with guidance from senior engineers.
- Integrate perception outputs (container frame, box poses, occupancy) into the planning scene, reasoning about collision objects such as container walls, ceiling, and neighboring boxes.
- Integrate path and trajectory generation with the control stack (MoveIt and ros_control), and measure cycle-time and throughput impact on hardware.
Hardware Validation
- Run controlled tests on the robot, compare before-and-after throughput, and quantify the impact of changes across diverse box and container configurations.
- Collaborate across autonomy, perception, controls, and robot software to deliver reliable end-to-end motion.
Qualifications
Experience: 1-3 years of professional experience (or equivalent research or internship experience) in motion planning, manipulator control, or robotics software, ideally with real-hardware exposure. Strong recent graduates with excellent fundamentals are encouraged to apply.
Education: Minimum B.S. in Robotics, Computer Science, Mechanical/Electrical Engineering, or a related field.
Technical Skills:
- Proficient in C++ (modern standards), Python, and ROS 1 or ROS 2.
- Working knowledge of MoveIt and at least one motion planning approach (e.g., sampling-based planners such as RRT/RRT-Connect/PRM, or optimization-based planners such as CHOMP/TrajOpt).
- Solid grasp of manipulator kinematics - forward/inverse kinematics, collision checking, velocity and acceleration limits, and singularity and joint-limit awareness for 6/7-DOF arms.
- Strong debugging instincts and a willingness to dig into hard, ambiguous production issues.
- Good communication and eagerness to learn from senior engineers.
Nice to Have
- Hands-on experience with industrial manipulators (e.g., UR, KUKA) and real-time joint control.
- Familiarity with integrating perception inputs (point clouds, object poses, occupancy maps) into collision-aware planning.
- Exposure to time-parameterization tools (TOTG/TOPP-RA, Ruckig, jerk-limited/S-curve profiles).
- A controls or electrical background (motor limits, torque, current) useful for hardware-level debugging.
- Exposure to physics-based or kinematic simulation (Isaac Sim, Gazebo, MuJoCo, Bullet).