Trainee Ai Robotics Engineer Jobs in California (NOW HIRING)

At Cargo, we’re backed by some of the best robotics investors in the Valley to transform a massive legacy industry and we’re more than doubling our engineering team to satisfy overwhelming customer demand.

If you’re an exceptional robotics engineer with a passion for bringing robots to production, we want to talk to you.

About us

Cargo Robotics is creating the logistics infrastructure of the next 100 years by automating the entire delivery chain with containerized physical AI, starting at the delivery van.

After taking jobs at UPS and FedEx, our founders realized that a new approach was needed. Delivery volumes have exploded 5x in the past decade, and the people and processes of parcel logistics are breaking under the load of trying to deliver this volume with a 1950’s network model. Today’s logistics has rampant injuries and attrition, nonstop errors and delays, and delivery drivers spending more time sorting packages than delivering.

Our first product is the X1 Robotic Cargo Bay which reimagines the guts of every delivery van you see on the road, and saves hours of labor per day for each vehicle. This is the first step in fully automating the delivery chain with radically more efficient networks that reduce carbon emissions and congestion to enable a more prosperous and healthy future.

We’re looking for an unstoppable and versatile robotics engineer to ship new key features as we launch pilots for X1. You’ll rapidly iterate alongside our incredible founding team (alumni of Stanford, Georgia Tech, Caltech, Tesla, NASA JPL, Lockheed, Saildrone, Machina Labs, Roam Robotics and Stanford AI lab) and enable us to rapidly scale up and satisfy overwhelming demand from international carriers.

We’re a user and product-centric company, so expect to deliver some actual parcels in your first week at work!

Get ready, there’s lots to build :)

What you’ll do

• Develop and integrate AI solutions to improve the capabilities and robustness of our package handling robotic system.
• Deploy ML algorithms, sensor fusion systems, and real-time processing pipelines on Nvidia Jetson platforms.
• Identify opportunities to apply cutting‑edge advancements in robotics and integrate them to improve our robotic system.
• Collaborate with a cross‑functional team of software, electrical, and mechanical engineers to build software for an autonomous robotic package handling system.
• Write clean, efficient, well‑documented code in Python, with a strong emphasis on maintainability and performance.
• Own software quality through rigorous testing, root‑cause debugging, and performance validation on live hardware.
• Identify and drive improvements to the software stack, tooling, and CI/CD pipelines to accelerate team velocity.
• Leverage AI‑assisted development tools such as LLM coding assistants and agents to accelerate implementation.
• Communicate technical progress clearly through code reviews, design discussions, and project updates.

Personal characteristics: you are

• Biased toward action: take initiative and get stuff done
• Driven and gritty: can take punches and keep on going
• A quick study: learn fast and teach those around you
• Calm in chaos: keep your composure and work through the hurricane
• Self‑aware and low ego: take and give feedback with grace

You need to bring this:

• Bachelor's or higher in Computer Science, Software Engineering, Robotics, or a closely related field.
• Strong programming skills in Python and/or C++.
• Hands‑on experience with ROS2 for robotics software development.
• Excellent problem‑solving ability; comfortable working both independently and in collaborative, fast‑moving teams.
• Genuine passion for hard robotics problems and shipping systems that work in the real world.
• Comfort operating in an early‑stage environment - moving fast, wearing multiple hats, and iterating quickly on systems that are in active deployment.

We’d love if you also have this:

• Experience fine‑tuning Vision‑Language Models (VLMs) or Vision‑Language‑Action models (VLAs) for robotics applications.
• Experience training, evaluating and integrating learned policies into workflows involving vacuum based manipulators.
• Experience with perception and scene understanding for grasping in complex/dynamic environments.
• Experience with deep learning frameworks such as PyTorch
• Experience with robot simulation environments such as Isaac Sim, Gazebo, or MuJoCo for training and evaluating learned policies.
• Familiarity with Docker, containerization, and embedded Linux, particularly in resource‑constrained deployment environments.

What’s in it for you?

• Be one of the first 10 employees in a trailblazing startup transforming the delivery industry
• Team culture driven by passion, ambition, empowerment, inclusion, curiosity, and fun! (One engineering offsite involved exploring temples and meeting with Softbank in Japan)
• Grow together – your professional growth and ours is critical to our company’s success
• Help us build a culture that empowers individuals, emboldens teams, and rewards achievement
• Early stage equity in a company backed by top founders and investors with multiple successful robotics exits
• Working late? Dinner is on us.
• Competitive pay + equity plan, 401k with generous company match, company-sponsored health and dental insurance, unlimited vacation

Benefits and Workplace

Benefits: Healthcare plan, 401k, PTO, parental leave, and much more!

On‑site 5 days a week (Menlo Park)

We’re a small team with a big mission, and are passionate about building the future. This takes a lot of time and focus, but we believe it’s also important to invest in the other parts of your life as well to maintain a fast pace long term.

We work in person 5(+) days per week from our office in Menlo Park (industrial loft feel with high ceilings and tons of natural light). We believe this is important to enable tight collaboration and fast iteration.

Does this sound like you?

Does this sound like you? If you’re excited about Cargo’s mission and think you can rock this role, then we’d love to meet you! We also value generalists with the motivation to learn and solve important problems, so please reach out even if you don’t have every qualification.

Cargo is an equal opportunity employer and values diversity in the workplace. We encourage all qualified individuals to apply. We’re excited about the future Cargo is building and look forward to meeting you!