Staff Systems Engineer - Core

The role

This person will own the foundational C++ infrastructure for NEO's brain and nervous system. They will improve real-time sensor pipelines, motor control interfaces, and IPC layers to ensure they are fast, deterministic, and reliable.

What you will do

• Own and continuously improve real-time C++ infrastructure including sensor pipelines and motor control interfaces
• Establish performance as a measurable standard through benchmarking and flamegraph tooling
• Build the IPC and serialization layer connecting perception, planning, and actuation
• Ship foundational libraries that run on thousands of robots in homes and warehouses

Required qualifications

• 5+ years shipping production C++ in performance-critical systems such as robotics, autonomous vehicles, HFT, game engines, OS/runtime, compilers, or HPC
• Demonstrated ability to profile, benchmark, and debug at the systems level using flamegraphs, perf counters, assembly inspection, and Linux kernel interfaces
• Proven track record of writing systems code with clean interfaces, minimal dependencies, and deterministic behavior under load

Nice to have

• Experience with real-time or safety-critical systems where latency guarantees and failure modes have physical consequences
• Familiarity with lock-free data structures, memory pools, and shared-memory IPC patterns
• Experience with cross-compilation toolchains and embedded Linux targets
• Background in robotics, autonomous vehicles, or other physical systems

Benefits

• Comprehensive medical, dental, and vision coverage
• Generous paid time off, company holidays, and parental leave
• 401(k) plan with company match (100% on the first 3% of contributions, 50% on the next 2%)
• Flexible Spending Accounts (FSA) and Health Savings Accounts (HSA) options
• Commuter benefits (transit and parking)
• Short-term and long-term disability, and life insurance
• Employee Assistance Program (EAP) for mental health, financial, and personal support
• Onsite snacks and catered lunches

About the company

1X builds humanoid robots that work in homes to do chores and handle tasks. They are developing NEO, a flagship home robot designed to move, learn, and operate in the real world.