The Role
Own the definition, integration, verification, and validation of robotic subsystems or end-to-end functions. Responsibilities include writing requirements and interface specifications, developing functional designs, managing hardware-software integration, conducting trade studies, investigating failures, executing test plans, maintaining traceability, and supporting manufacturing and field deployments. The role requires cross-disciplinary reasoning across mechanics, electronics, controls, firmware, and software, along with Python scripting and experience delivering robotic or embedded systems into real-world operation.
Summary Generated by Built In
Systems Engineer
Robotics & Automation
Work LocationPuneWork ModeIn CampusDepartmentSystems EngineeringEmployment TypeFull-TimeReporting ToHead of Systems EngineeringExperience3–6 yearsABOUT US
Unbox Robotics is a deep-tech robotics company building the world's most space-efficient warehouse sorting systems. Our swarm robotics platform — UnboxSort — enables e-commerce, retail, and 3PL operators to sort at 3–5× the throughput of conventional systems, in a fraction of the floor space.
Founded in 2019 and headquartered in Pune, we operate across 20+ sites in 9 countries, serving leading players in e-commerce, retail, CEP, and 3PL across India, Europe, and the USA. Series B funded, we are scaling rapidly toward our next phase of global growth.
We believe great robots are built on rigorous engineering — and Systems Engineering is where that rigour begins.
ROLE OVERVIEW
Own the definition, integration, and validation of a robotic subsystem or an end-to-end function. Your scope could include motion execution, sensing, robot-to-server communication, charging, or fault recovery.
You will translate operational needs into specifications, maintain interfaces across engineering teams, and demonstrate that the delivered function meets its performance, reliability, and cost targets. Success in this role means your subsystem has an agreed operational purpose, clear requirements, controlled interfaces, and complete acceptance evidence — with documents and the implemented system staying aligned as changes occur, and manufacturing and field teams able to reproduce expected performance and diagnose failures.
ROLES & RESPONSIBILITIES
Operational Definition & Specifications
- Contribute to the system Concept of Operations (ConOps) and develop detailed scenarios for your scope, including startup, normal operation, shutdown, maintenance, failures, and recovery
- Author and maintain assigned portions of the System Specification Document (SSD) and the complete specifications for your subsystem or function
- Define measurable requirements, constraints, assumptions, and acceptance criteria
Functional Design & Interfaces
- Develop functional breakdowns, state machines, sequence diagrams, and subsystem design descriptions with the relevant engineering teams
- Own Interface Control Documents (ICDs) for your scope, defining applicable mechanical and electrical interfaces, signals, units, coordinate frames, message formats, timing, timeouts, and compatibility requirements
Engineering Trade-offs & Integration
- Analyse accuracy, latency, bandwidth, power, compute, and component-cost requirements, and validate assumptions through calculations and physical measurements
- Plan bring-up and integration activities, resolve dependencies, and maintain a reproducible configuration across hardware, firmware, and software
Verification & Validation
- Author and execute plans that demonstrate compliance with requirements and suitability for intended operating scenarios
- Select appropriate simulation, replay, bench, hardware-in-the-loop, and robot tests
Failure Behaviour & Change Control
- Work with domain engineers to define detection, degraded operation, recovery, and diagnostics
- Lead investigations across hardware and software boundaries and verify corrective actions
- Assess changes against requirements, interfaces, risks, and existing test evidence; maintain traceability and bring proposed changes through technical review
Production & Field Feedback
- Support calibration procedures, manufacturing acceptance tests, pilot deployments, and improvements based on operational data
Engineering Deliverables You Will Own
- Subsystem specifications and assigned system-level requirements
- ConOps contributions, functional diagrams, and operating-state descriptions
- ICDs and subsystem design descriptions
- Performance budgets and documented trade studies
- Verification and validation plans, traceability records, and acceptance reports
- Change-impact assessments and investigation reports
REQUIREMENTS
Must Have
- Experience delivering a robotic, embedded, automation, or electromechanical subsystem into real operation
- Technical depth in at least one discipline, and the ability to reason across mechanics, electronics, controls, firmware, and software
- Demonstrated ability to write testable requirements and useful interface specifications
- Experience using calculations, logs, controlled experiments, and instrumentation to identify root causes
- Python or comparable scripting proficiency, with the ability to understand relevant embedded or robotics software
- Working knowledge of communication interfaces and timing behaviour in embedded or distributed systems
- Ability to lead technical reviews and take an ambiguous problem through to a verified outcome
Good to Have
- Mobile robots and fleet coordination
- Calibration and control-system characterisation
- Automated testing
- Failure-mode analysis
- Manufacturing test
- Requirements-management tools
- Industrial deployments
ELIGIBLE CANDIDATES
Desired Qualification
- Relevant engineering education or equivalent practical experience
Work Experience
- 3–6 years delivering robotic, embedded, automation, or electromechanical subsystems
WE VALUE
- Ownership — carries a subsystem from definition through to field performance
- Clarity — writes requirements and interfaces others can build and test against
- Evidence-Based Decisions — backs trade-offs with calculations, logs, and measurements
- Cross-Disciplinary Thinking — reasons across mechanics, electronics, controls, firmware, and software
- Closure on Ambiguity — turns open-ended problems into verified outcomes
WHY JOIN US
Own a real piece of a robotic platform that runs in live warehouses. Your specifications, interfaces, and acceptance evidence will directly determine how reliably Unbox Robotics’ fleets perform at customer sites across India, Europe, and the USA.
You won’t just own a subsystem.
You’ll own the proof that it works — in the warehouse, at scale.
Work Location: Pune
Work Mode: In Campus
Salary Range: Competitive Salary
Skills Required
- Experience delivering a robotic, embedded, automation, or electromechanical subsystem into real operation
- Technical depth in at least one engineering discipline and ability to reason across mechanics, electronics, controls, firmware, and software
- Demonstrated ability to write testable requirements and interface specifications
- Experience using calculations, logs, controlled experiments, and instrumentation to identify root causes
- Python or comparable scripting proficiency and ability to understand embedded or robotics software
- Working knowledge of communication interfaces and timing behavior in embedded or distributed systems
- Ability to lead technical reviews and take ambiguous problems through verified outcomes
- Relevant engineering education or equivalent practical experience
- Experience delivering robotic, embedded, automation, or electromechanical subsystems for 3-6 years
- Experience with mobile robots and fleet coordination
- Experience with calibration and control-system characterization
- Experience with automated testing
- Experience with failure-mode analysis
- Experience with manufacturing testing
- Experience with requirements-management tools
- Experience with industrial deployments
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The Company
What We Do
Unbox Robotics builds software-defined robotics systems to enable logistics players to automate and radically improve their operations on-demand in a limited footprint and capital. We are applying proprietary Swarm Intelligence and ML algorithms inspired by nature to redefine the way companies sort and ship orders. Our 1st product UnboxSort is the world's first of its kind patented AI-powered parcel sorting robotic system that gets installed in <2 weeks, saves ~50% - 80% area, and improves productivity by > 3X to 5X. We have a strong team of alumni from the National University of Singapore, the University of York, and the Indian School of Business with international experience in robotics, manufacturing, and logistics. We are backed by 3one4 Capital, Sixth Sense Ventures, SOSV, Entrepreneur First, Redstart Labs (Info Edge), Arali Ventures, CIIE, Beenext, WEH Ventures, Force Ventures, Veda VC, and an impressive set of angel investors.
