Senior Manager, Robotics Software

Department: Software Engineering

Location: Santa Clara

Employment Type: FullTime

Do you love building and leading teams that bring intelligent robots to life? At Cobot, we’re building the software that enables robots to navigate, plan, and operate safely in real-world environments — and we’re looking for a Sr. Manager, Software Robotics to help lead and grow our autonomy-focused engineering teams.

In this role, you’ll be a people-first leader responsible for managing and mentoring software engineers working across core robotics domains such as navigation, planning, behavior, localization, and system integration. While this role requires a strong technical foundation in robotics or autonomous systems, the primary focus is on team leadership, execution, and cross-functional collaboration — ensuring teams are healthy, supported, and delivering high-quality production software.

You’ll partner closely with technical leads, product, hardware, and operations teams to guide priorities, unblock execution, and help scale both people and processes as Cobot grows. This is an ideal role for an experienced engineering manager who has worked on real robots or autonomous devices and is excited to lead teams through the challenges of deploying robotics systems in the real world.

Join us to reimagine the future of human-robot interaction.

Collaborative Robotics is a team of innovators and builders redefining the future of human-robot interaction. We are working to realize a world where robots are a trusted extension of your surroundings. They work, adapt, and react around you. Not the other way around.

This role is located onsite at our Santa Clara, CA headquarters.

Key Responsibilities:

• Lead, manage, and mentor software engineering teams working on core robotics and autonomy capabilities.

• Foster a strong team culture centered on trust, accountability, growth, and collaboration.

• Support engineers’ career development through regular feedback, coaching, and performance management.

• Partner with technical leads to help guide technical direction, planning, and execution — without requiring deep day-to-day algorithm ownership.

• Work cross-functionally with autonomy, hardware, simulation, and operations teams to ensure alignment and smooth delivery.

• Help teams navigate changing requirements, product pivots, and customer-driven priorities in a fast-paced startup environment.

• Drive execution excellence by ensuring clear goals, realistic timelines, and strong communication across stakeholders.

• Contribute to hiring, onboarding, and scaling the robotics software organization.

Minimum Qualifications:

• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science or a related technical field.

• 7+ years of experience building and shipping production software systems.

• 5+ years of experience leading and mentoring engineering teams in a people management capacity.

• Established experience working on robotics, autonomous vehicles, or complex autonomous devices.

• Strong understanding of software engineering best practices and how they apply to robotics systems.

• Proven ability to lead teams through ambiguity, technical complexity, and rapid iteration.

• Highly motivated teammate with excellent oral and written communication skills.

• Enjoy working in a fast paced, collaborative and dynamic start-up environment as part of a small team.

• Willing to occasionally travel.

• Must have and maintain US work authorization.

Preferred Qualifications:

• Experience managing teams working on autonomy-related domains such as navigation, planning, behavior, localization, or perception.
  Background in robotics software stacks, autonomous systems, or real-time distributed systems.

• Familiarity with ROS or similar robotics middleware.

• Experience scaling teams in startup or growth-stage environments.

• Advanced degree (Master’s or PhD) in Robotics, Computer Science, or a related field.

The base salary range for this position is $240,000-$260,000 plus equity and comprehensive benefits. Our salary ranges are determined by role and experience level. The range reflects the minimum and maximum target for new hire salaries for the position in the noted geographic area. Within the range, individual pay is determined by additional factors, including job-related skills, experience, and relevant education or training.

Cobot is an Equal Opportunity Employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to legally protected characteristics. We are committed to providing reasonable accommodations for candidates with disabilities in our recruiting process. If you need any assistance or accommodations due to a disability, please let your recruiter know.

To all recruitment agencies: Collaborative Robotics does not accept agency resumes. Please do not forward resumes to our employees. Collaborative Robotics is not responsible for any fees related to unsolicited resumes.