About Loombotic
Loombotic is automating the wire harness, the hand-built nervous system inside every robot, vehicle, and machine. It is one of the last big manufacturing processes still done almost entirely by hand, and we are changing that by building our own instant-quoting software and our own machines, shipping a custom harness in about a week instead of 6 to 12. Teams building robotics, aerospace, and advanced thermal and data-center hardware rely on us to get custom cables in days, not months.
This role builds the perception and robotics at the heart of that.
The role
You'll build the perception and robotics that let our automated line handle wires, connectors, and terminals - parts that are flexible, small, and hard for traditional automation. That means vision systems that find and orient connectors and wire ends, and robot motion that picks, places, routes, and terminates reliably on a real production floor. You'll own problems end-to-end, from prototype on the bench to running in production, working shoulder-to-shoulder with mechanical, controls, and the technicians who run the line.
Problems you'll get to solve
A few of the problems you'd actually work on:
Get a robot to reliably pick, orient, and place wires and connectors: flexible, shiny parts that have to be placed and seated to sub-millimeter precision, the kind of work traditional automation chokes on
Build vision that finds and localizes a specific connector, terminal, or wire end in clutter, under real factory lighting, fast enough to keep cycle time low
Solve high-precision insertion and termination: seating a terminal in the right cavity every time, at the tolerances harnesses demand
Drive a vision-guided task from works-in-a-demo to runs-untended on the line, by understanding both the algorithm and how the part actually behaves
Make it robust enough to run unattended on a production line, not just in a demo
What you'll do
Build vision pipelines (classical CV and/or ML) for detecting, segmenting, and estimating the pose of connectors, terminals, and wire ends
Develop and tune robot motion for pick/place, routing, insertion, and termination tasks
Handle camera/robot calibration, hand-eye calibration, and the gritty real-world edge cases
Close the loop with mechanical and controls engineers on end effectors, fixtures, and machine design
Deploy, monitor, and harden systems running on the production floor; debug failures with real parts
Measure and drive up cycle time, yield, and reliability
You are
Hands-on with both code and hardware - happy at a workstation and on the floor with the machine
Rigorous about making things work reliably in the real world, not just in a demo
A fast iterator who learns from physical failure modes
A strong collaborator across mechanical, controls, and production
More interested in the line running reliably than in who gets credit for the fix
Minimum qualifications
Experience building robotics and/or computer-vision systems that ran on real hardware
Strong programming in Python and/or C++
Solid grasp of camera calibration, coordinate frames/transforms, and robotic manipulation
Comfortable working on-site in Austin, TX with physical equipment
Legally authorized to work in the U.S. or Canada
Nice to have
Industrial robot arms, motion control, or real-time systems
6-DoF pose estimation, deep learning for perception, or sensor fusion
Manufacturing automation, machine building, or NPI on a production line
Working with deformable/flexible objects (wires, cables, fabric)
ROS or equivalent robotics frameworks
Bonus: serious Factorio (or other factory-builder game) playtime. If optimizing automated factories for fun sounds like you, you'll fit right in.
What we care about
We care about engineers who close the loop on hard physical problems. The best person here gets a flaky vision-guided insertion from 80% to 99.9% because they understand both the algorithm and the way the part actually behaves on the floor. We want people who want to automate something the industry says can't be automated.
Compensation & benefits
$135k-$185k base + meaningful early-stage equity, 0.25% to 0.75% (most offers 0.3-0.5%; 0.6-0.75% for an early senior or lead), 4-year vest, 1-year cliff. Typical hire $145-160k; $170-185k for a senior or lead
Medical, dental, and vision coverage
Paid time off and company holidays
Top-tier hardware, tools, and lab access
Access to our engineering lab and tools for approved personal projects. We like people who build things
How to apply
Apply with your resume (and any projects/demos) and short answers to:
Describe a vision or robotics system you took from prototype to working reliably on real hardware. What broke, and how did you fix it?
What's your experience with manipulation, pose estimation, or robot motion?
Why Loombotic / why automating harness manufacturing?
Loombotic is an equal opportunity employer. We consider all qualified applicants without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, age, disability, veteran status, or any other protected characteristic. We provide reasonable accommodations for applicants with disabilities; if you need one during the hiring process, just ask.