Full-Time
Forward Deployed Engineer
Robotics, Roboto Ai
Posted on 9/26/2025
Unusual Ventures
11-50 employees
Invests in early-stage tech startups
Compensation Overview
$150k - $200k/yr
Seattle, WA, USA
In Person
 Software Engineering (1) |
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- Has deep technical expertise: 5+ years of experience in robotics, software engineering, or data engineering, ideally with high-stakes systems or autonomy stacks.
- As a Forward Deployed Engineer, you'll work directly with some of the world's leading robotics teams to help them get the most out of Roboto.
- This is a deeply technical and high-impact role at the heart of our customer interactions.
- You'll gain a unique vantage point across the robotics industry: one week supporting a drone company to implement fleet-wide anomaly detection, the next accelerating data curation for a robotic foundation model.
- You’ll develop a deep understanding of our customer workflows, helping them implement solutions, and translating insights into continuous product improvements.
- You’ll also create new resources like technical blog posts and walkthroughs to introduce customers to our latest features.
- Bonus points: Customer interaction experience as a consultant, technical program manager or customer success lead, comfortable guiding teams and ensuring solutions deliver real results.
- Robotics systems & data: Proficiency with ROS/ROS2, PX4, Isaac SDK/Sim, lidar/camera data, autonomy pipelines, motion planning, or other robotics frameworks.
- Data engineering & analysis: Expertise in SQL, Embeddings, Vector Databases, Python, Pandas, Jupyter, Spark, or similar tools for handling large datasets.
- Software deployment & automation: Familiarity with CI/CD, cloud pipelines, and containerization.
- AI & developer tools: Experience building AI pipelines, robotics applications, or open-source developer tools.
- The listed salary range is wide to cover candidates with broad experience (5–15+ years). Your actual base salary will be determined on a case-by-case basis, taking into account relevant skills, education, and experience.
- Eligible employees will also receive equity grants in the form of stock options, giving you the opportunity to share in the company’s long-term success.
- Roboto is an equal opportunity employer, and all qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, or national origin.
Unusual Ventures is a venture-capital firm that backs early-stage tech startups and helps them reach product-market fit. It combines financial investment with practical support, offering portfolio companies access to a Field Guide—a library of more than 100 articles, case studies, interviews, and tools designed to guide founders through building and growing a business. The company earns returns by taking equity stakes in its investments and helping portfolio companies grow value. Its differentiator is the integrated mix of capital with structured, tactical resources and guidance that goes beyond standard funding, specifically aimed at accelerating product-market fit and business growth for startups.
Company Size
11-50
Company Stage
N/A
Total Funding
$2.9B
Headquarters
Menlo Park, California
Founded
2018
Simplify's Take
What believers are saying
- Portfolio companies raise follow-on rounds at valuations above industry averages.
- Exits include acquisitions by SonicWall in 2024, Hashicorp in 2023, and Datadog in 2022.
- Led $6.3M seed for Miravoice, surpassing 100,000 calls in 2025 with growth expected.
What critics are saying
- 135 investments yield only 3 exits in 7 years, trailing benchmarks and threatening Fund IV.
- Operator model depends on 3 principals; key-person loss collapses hands-on support.
- Seed focus prevents leading Series A, diluting influence as founders seek external leads.
What makes Unusual Ventures unique
- Unusual Ventures deploys full-time operators as interim executives for portfolio founders.
- Field Guide offers over 100 articles, case studies, and tools for early-stage navigation.
- Seed pitch deck template starts with human problem stories and milestones to next fundraise.
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Benefits
Stock Options
Remote Work Options
Company News
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Miravoice, a startup using AI voice agents to conduct long-form phone surveys, has raised $6.3 million in seed funding led by Unusual Ventures. Neo, 25madison and angel investors from Ramp, PubMatic, Atlassian and Google also participated. The company's AI interviewer conducts quantitative phone surveys without human interviewers, handling questionnaires with over 120 questions lasting more than 40 minutes. The platform supports multiple languages and uses usage-based billing, charging customers for actual phone time. Founded by Nishant Jain, Danny D. Leybzon and Shreyas Tirumala, Miravoice has between 10 and 20 customers including public opinion organisations, market research firms and private companies. The startup surpassed 100,000 calls in 2025 and expects significant growth this year, with some customers planning millions of calls annually after full deployment.
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