Lead/Director of Software Engineering
Do you want to help build real technology for a meaningful purpose? Do you want to fight to make the world’s fresh produce healthier, tastier, and more sustainable?
As the Robotics Software Lead at Tortuga, you’ll lead our strategic and tactical software development efforts and execution while empowering the robotics software working team. You’ll drive the world-changing performance of our groundbreaking fleet of robots. You’ll be starting with a well-structured codebase (no disaster!) to pioneer revolutionary robot behaviors, new features and services for our customers, and support tools for our operations team.
As a leader at Tortuga, you’ll be fundamental to our success, growth, and culture. You’ll bring experience and a passion for our mission while also thriving in a fast-paced, flexible, and energized startup environment. You’re excited to grow your role and leadership skills as Tortuga grows.
What you’ll do
Work directly with the CTO to translate strategic plans and metrics into software strategy and implementation
Lead blue-sky problem solving to design new software systems, algorithms, and architectures that drive best-in-world performance
Empower, mentor, manage, and coach the team to solve challenging real-world perception, localization, navigation, path planning, and manipulation problems
Communicate and collaborate within interdisciplinary teams to design solutions, test prototypes, and troubleshoot field performance
Manage the software rollout pipeline to the production environment (a literal field) to support the operations team in their deployments and testing
Establish, track and report on performance metrics and impact
Understand and manage stakeholder expectations within the team and across the company
What we’re looking for
Required: 6+ years experience in professional, full-stack software development in autonomous navigation, robotics, or relevant fields, including mastery of C++ and ROS
Required: Specific familiarity with custom hardware and integration, navigation, motor controllers, arm planning, camera implementation, and image acquisition
Required: Bachelor of Science in Robotics, Engineering, Computer Science, or other related field; Master of Science a plus
Required: 2+ years experience directly managing and coaching a 4+ person team in production software development
Preferred: Knowledge of Python, experience with ROS2, experience with AWS
Must enjoy a fast-paced environment; startup experience a major plus
Exceptional problem solving skills, including troubleshooting, data analysis, and timing code execution
Great communication skills, results-oriented, and able to meet or exceed deadlines
The base salary range below represents the low and high end of our salary range for this position. Actual salaries may vary and may be above or below the range based on various factors including but not limited to experience, education, responsibilities, and regular and/or necessary travel. The range listed is just one component of Tortuga’s total compensation package for employees.
Denver area base salary range: $165,000 - $215,000 per year. Relocation assistance is available for out-of-state candidates.
This position is based in Denver, with the ability to work from home 1-2 days a week, based on business needs (100% remote is not available).
All salaried, full-time employees receive:
Meaningful company equity
Unlimited paid time off
401K plan with 3% employer contribution
Medical, dental, and vision insurance
Flexible working hours
Annual wellness stipend
A word about COVID-19
We are highly sensitive to the difficulties that the COVID-19 pandemic brings to people, as team members and as individuals at home. We want you to be safe, to keep our team safe, and to do our part to help reduce the impact of the pandemic. We are an Essential Business so the majority of our work is performed at our office. Our office abides by all COVID-19 guidelines established by the State of Colorado and the City of Denver.
About Tortuga
Tortuga AgTech’s mission is to build a healthier society, and a thriving planet, through smarter farming. We’re pursuing our mission by building robotic harvesting and precision analytics systems for the world’s leading fresh produce growers (delicious things like strawberries, tomatoes, bell peppers, and herbs). We’re building not just because it’s fun, but because we believe thoughtful, well-built advanced technology can help farmers grow healthier, fresher, more environmentally sustainable produce for everyone. We’re backed by some of the most respected early-stage investors in Silicon Valley, as well as ag industry veterans.
Tortuga means “turtle” in Spanish. Around the world, turtles are symbols of wisdom, patience, and connectedness to the Earth. We’re proud to be based in Denver, CO - a growing and leading robotics hub in North America, and a great place to live!
Tortuga is an equal opportunity employer. All aspects of employment including the decision to hire, promote, discipline, or discharge, will be based on merit, competence, performance, and business needs. We do not discriminate on the basis of race, color, religion, marital status, age, national origin, ancestry, physical or mental disability, medical condition, pregnancy, genetic information, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, veteran status, or any other status protected under federal, state, or local law.