# Applications Engineer - San Francisco at Polymath Robotics

- Company: Polymath Robotics (YC S22)
- What the company does: General Autonomy for Industrial Vehicles. Backed by Y Combinator.
- Company website: http://www.polymathrobotics.com
- Type: Startups (AI role)
- Level: Mid level
- Location: San Francisco, CA, US
- Work setup: On-site
- Pay: $113K to $150K base salary per year (USD)
- Posted: 2026-07-22
- Apply by: 2026-10-08
- Apply: https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/polymath-robotics/jobs/AyzuzKw-applications-engineer-san-francisco
- Page: https://www.1752.vc/careers/jobs/polymath-robotics-applications-engineer-san-francisco/

## About the role

Polymath builds autonomy software for industrial off-road vehicles — wheel loaders, haul trucks, excavators — deployed at steel mills, mines, and farm. These are different vehicles, in different operational design domains, and different customer environments. That diversity is the challenge: the only way to make bringing up autonomy on vehicle #40 faster than vehicle #4 is to treat autonomy bringup as a system you're continuously improving instead of a checklist re-run by hand every time.

## What they're looking for

- Strong in one or more of: C++, Python, ROS/ROS2, systems architecture, or test automation frameworks
- Prior hands-on experience with robots or autonomous systems — not simulation-only
- Evidence you've automated or systematized a manual process before, on any team, in any language
- Comfortable being the person who flags a fragile pattern before it becomes a recurring failure
- Comfortable communicating directly with clients and integrators — aligning on requirements, explaining what the system can and can't do today, and translating customer intent into engineering criteria
- Excellent written communication — you'll be documenting test coverage, handoff criteria, technical proposals, and integration improvements

Tags: Engineering