Robotics / Hardware Engineer | Lumen Labs
Location: San Francisco, CA (ONSITE)
Employment Type: Full-time
Compensation: $130k–200k + equity
Source: Hacker News
About Lumen Labs
Lumen Labs is building the cognitive layer for physical AI. While most robotics efforts rely on thousands of hours of human teleoperation, we believe that paradigm has a ceiling. We are working on nature-inspired architectures for unstructured environments, including construction sites, mining, pipelines, and the battlefield. We are a pre-seed company backed by top VC funds and operators from leading robotics and AI companies.
The Role
We are a team of two and are hiring our third teammate to own the hardware and infrastructure that keeps our research platforms running. You will be responsible for:
- Managing the ROS2 (Humble) stack across onboard and offboard compute.
- Sensor integration and calibration (LiDAR, depth, IMU, encoders).
- Maintaining the safety pipeline during autonomous runs.
- Deploying trained policies onto real hardware.
Our current focus is on wheeled navigation, but we are expanding into drones and specialized platforms like pipeline inspection. We have already achieved zero-shot sim2real transfer with a policy that runs at 100Hz on an ESP32 and took under a day to train.
Requirements
We are looking for someone who is hands-on with real mobile robots. You are a great fit if:
- You have experience with UART, encoders, PWM, IMU, and LiDAR.
- You possess strong Python and embedded skills.
- You are comfortable reading code you didn't write.
- You can debug hardware and firmware simultaneously.
- You define "full-stack" as working with firmware, a multimeter, and a ROS node in the same afternoon.
Visa and relocation support are available for the right candidate.
How to Apply
- Full Posting: View on Notion
- Email: hi@lumenresearch.co
When applying, please mention Hacker News and tell us about a project you've built. If you can provide a link to a time you got a trained policy running on real hardware, your application will be prioritized.