Forward Deployed Engineer

About Flexion:

At Flexion, we're building the intelligence layer powering the next generation of humanoid robots. Our mission is to accelerate the transition from fragile prototypes to real-world humanoid deployment. We are founded by leading scientists in robot reinforcement learning (ex-Nvidia, ex-ETH Zürich) and backed by leading international VC firms. Within a few months we’ve gone from our first line of code to deploying real humanoid capabilities with our partners. Learn more about Flexion at flexion.ai

The role

Build the software that turns robot intelligence into real-world capability.

As a Forward Deployed Engineer at Flexion, you’ll work at the intersection of software engineering, robotics, and AI. You’ll bring up new robot platforms, deploy learned controllers, and build autonomous workflows that enable robots to perform useful work.

Working closely with our AI team, you’ll write the software that deploys Flexion’s autonomy stack across whole-body control, manipulation, and agentic execution. Your work will span hardware interfaces, robot modelling, inference pipelines, and autonomous task execution—with your code driving robots in the physical world.

You’ll also own technical delivery with customers, working directly with their engineers to turn requirements into working capabilities. From initial scoping to validation on customer hardware, you’ll combine hands-on engineering with clear communication and ownership of the outcome.

Key responsibilities

• Bring Flexion’s intelligence onto real robots. Develop hardware abstraction layers, actuator and sensor interfaces, middleware integrations, and control-loop infrastructure. Own robot bring-up and solve integration challenges across software and hardware.
• Close the loop between simulation and deployment. Investigate differences between simulated and real-world behaviour, identify their causes, and improve robot models, interfaces, inference pipelines, and deployment infrastructure.
• Engineer autonomous capabilities that deliver real work. Turn complex customer tasks into reliable autonomous behaviours by building software that brings perception, learned controllers, manipulation, and task planning together. Solve the challenges of coordinating models, managing execution, and recovering from failures so robots can complete tasks in real-world environments.
• Solve problems in the field. Lead technical work at customer sites, diagnose failures using logs and measurements, and implement fixes that improve the underlying software. Follow complex problems through to tested, reliable solutions.
• Own technical delivery with customers. Define requirements, milestones, and acceptance criteria with customer engineers. Coordinate dependencies with internal teams, communicate progress and technical tradeoffs, and address risks early. Own delivery from initial scoping through validation on customer hardware.

Requirements

• Strong software engineering skills, with production-level proficiency in C++ and experience building maintainable, tested systems.
• Hands-on experience developing software for robotics hardware, including actuator and sensor interfaces, hardware abstraction layers, or control systems.
• The ability to debug real robots and reason across software, hardware, timing, and system behaviour.
• A solid understanding of control theory and practical experience in robot modelling, simulation, calibration, or system identification.
• Strong Linux development and debugging skills, familiarity with networking and hardware communication protocols, and experience with ROS2 and DDS.
• The ability to collaborate with AI researchers and customer engineers, communicate technical tradeoffs clearly, and take ownership of complex engineering problems and deliverables.
• Experience in customer-facing engineering roles, delivering technical solutions from scoping through deployment.
• A degree in Computer Science, Robotics, Electrical Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, or equivalent practical experience.
• Willingness to travel to customer sites as needed, approximately 20%.

Bonus:

• Familiarity with deep learning and reinforcement learning.
• Experience with robotics simulation tools such as Isaac Sim or MuJoCo.

Benefits

• Competitive compensation
• Enhanced pension plan
• Enhanced holiday & paid leave perks
• Relocation & permit sponsorship
• Central Zürich office with top-tier robotics testing facilities and infrastructure
• Joining a leading robotics team & exposure to never-done-before research
• Energetic, collaborative culture with a bias for action and regular community events