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Applied Autonomy Systems Engineer (Robotics, AI & Mechatronics)

SWARM Biotactics
Kassel, Hesse, Germany
Full-time

At SWARM Biotactics, we’re creating biorobots — living, intelligent systems based on insects. Each insect carries a custom-designed backpack that enables wireless control, sensing, and secure communication.

Biorobot swarms combine the agility of biology with AI, sensors, and swarm coordination — unlocking capabilities where conventional machines fail.

We are the only company in the world doing this — and we’re pushing the edge of what’s possible in every domain: from biology to embedded hardware to swarm intelligence.

Robust autonomy depends on tight integration across sensing, mechatronics, robotics software, and learning-based components.

We are looking for a senior, hands-on engineer with substantial professional experience who can take ownership of building reliable end-to-end capabilities across these layers — from early prototypes to robust real-world performance.

🚀 Join us at the frontier — and build the core autonomy capabilities for the first generation of living machines.

💡 What you’ll do

* Own end-to-end integration of sensing and autonomy components in real-world systems

* Evaluate and integrate sensors and perception inputs, ensuring reliable data quality and robust pipelines

* Work across mechatronics, embedded-adjacent bring-up, and robotics software integration as needed

* Integrate and extend core robotics stacks (e.g., perception interfaces, estimation hooks, autonomy modules) for unconventional platforms

* Prototype learning-based components where they create leverage, with a focus on robustness and measurable performance

* Design and run practical experiments to validate system behavior in realistic conditions

* Debug and improve performance across layers (hardware → drivers → pipelines → algorithms/models)

* Collaborate closely with robotics, AI, autonomy, software, and biology teams

🧠 What we’re looking for

* Excellent Master’s degree in Robotics, Computer Science, Electrical Engineering, Mechatronics, or a closely related field

* 5+ years of full-time, professional experience building and integrating robotics systems (student roles, internships, or purely academic projects are not sufficient)

* Demonstrated ability to operate across disciplines: sensing, mechatronics, robotics software integration, and applied AI

* Comfortable with hardware-near development and rapid prototyping when needed (without being a pure hardware engineer)

* Strong software engineering skills and a track record of ownership for complex components

* Ability to move between abstraction levels: system design, implementation, debugging, and validation

* Practical mindset: you work well with imperfect data and improve systems through iteration and measurement

➕ Nice to have

* Computer vision and/or perception experience

* Sensor fusion / time synchronization in multi-sensor systems

* Experience taking ML components from prototype to production-like systems (evaluation, tooling, reproducibility)

* Field testing, simulation-to-real workflows, or work on constrained/unconventional platforms

🌍 Why SWARM Biotactics

* We’re well-funded and expanding fast in a space no one else is in.

* You’ll join a world-class team working on the frontier of science and engineering.

* Your work will directly shape the foundation of biorobotic systems that redefine the interface between life and technology.

⚡ Join the Swarm

If you want to build foundational systems for technology that has never existed before, we’d love to hear from you.

Applications go to the hiring team directly