RAI Institute

Senior Build Engineer

Reposted 10 Days Ago

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Cambridge, MA

In-Office

Senior level

Artificial Intelligence • Robotics

The Role

The Senior Build Engineer will develop and maintain the build system, CI processes, manage build artifacts, and troubleshoot issues in software development workflows.

Summary Generated by Built In

Our Mission

Our mission is to solve the most important and fundamental challenges in AI and Robotics to enable future generations of intelligent machines that will help us all live better lives.

Overview

The Build Engineer will be an integral member of the team responsible for developing, supporting, and maintaining the build system and continuous integration (CI) processes at the Robotics and AI Institute. This role is critical to the Institute’s success, ensuring that the codebase remains stable and builds are efficient. You will develop, support, and maintain the build system (with a strong focus on tools like Bazel, CMake, and Colcon) and continuous integration processes. The ideal candidate will focus on constructing reproducible builds for rapid iteration, creating maintainable build artifacts, and managing dependencies, all of which are essential for sustained productivity across the Institute.

Responsibilities

This role focuses on build system tooling and software compilation, not infrastructure provisioning or production deployment pipelines
Design, develop, and maintain a company-wide build system and continuous integration (CI) infrastructure for both internal and external repositories, ensuring reliable and reproducible builds
Collaborate with research and development teams to integrate software and third-party libraries into the build system
Drive release engineering efforts, including packaging, deployment, and version management
Maintain and evolve version control workflows, ensuring efficient branching, merging, and code review processes
Troubleshoot and resolve build failures, dependency conflicts, and CI-related issues
Implement and optimize build pipelines for speed, reliability, and scalability
Manage and maintain build artifacts, ensuring they are reproducible, versioned, and easily accessible
Develop and maintain automated testing frameworks within the CI pipeline to ensure code quality
Monitor, profile, and improve build performance (e.g., incremental build times, cache effectiveness, dependency graph complexity
Provide informal technical leadership within the build, CI domain and developer experience, sharing best practices, reviewing code, and mentoring junior engineers or researchers who interact with the build system

Qualifications

BS or MS in Computer Science or equivalent experience
7+ years of experience in software development. 3+ years of experience in Linux build/release engineering
Strong experience with build automation tools (e.g., Bazel, CMake, Colcon), including deep understanding of compilation pipelines, dependency graphs, and build system performance tuning
Experience with modern C++ (C++17 or later) and Python, particularly in the context of building, linking, and packaging large code bases
Experience with dependency management tools (e.g., pip, poetry).Knowledge of Debian packaging systems
Excellent communication and collaboration skills
Strong documentation practices for build processes and CI/CD pipelines
A collaborative mindset, with interest in mentoring others and supporting team-wide growth in build and CI expertise

Bonus

Experience with GitHub Enterprise, Google Artifact Registry, or other artifact management platforms including artifact versioning, traceability, and reproducibility best practices
Hands on experience with ROS/ROS2 in a robotics environment
Familiarity with Kubernetes and container orchestration, particularly as it relates to managing builds and deployments of complex systems
Familiarity with cross-compilation and build systems for embedded systems or specialized hardware
Background in real-time systems, with exposure to deterministic build requirements and RTOS-specific build workflows

We provide equal employment opportunities to all employees and applicants for employment and prohibit discrimination and harassment of any type without regard to race, color, religion, age, sex, national origin, disability status, genetics, protected veteran status, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, or any other characteristic protected by federal, state or local laws.