Senior Robotics Software Engineer

Locus Robotics wins 2026 Artificial Intelligence Excellence award in Supply Chain & Logistics. March 24, 2026 Recognition honors organizations, products, teams, and individuals delivering measurable results through artificial intelligence. WILMINGTON, MA - March 24, 2026 - Locus Robotics, the leader in Flexibility-First Warehouse Automation, announced it has been named a winner in the 2026 Artificial Intelligence Excellence Awards, in the category of Supply Chain & Logistics. Presented by the Business Intelligence Group, the award recognizes organizations, products, teams, and individuals that are applying artificial intelligence in ways that drive real, measurable impact. The 2026 Artificial Intelligence Excellence Awards honor achievement across a broad range of industries and use cases, spotlighting the companies and leaders moving AI beyond experimentation and into practical, accountable deployment. This year's program recognized winners across 36 industries and more than 15 countries. Locus Robotics was recognized for its LocusONE(TM) intelligent orchestration platform and the introduction of Locus Array, applying physical AI and vision-guided autonomy to coordinate robots, human labor, and workflows in real time across complex warehouse operations. Through this work, the company has enabled warehouses to operate as self-optimizing systems that adapt to shifting volumes, labor variability, and changing order profiles while improving fulfillment speed, accuracy, and operational reliability at scale. "AI has arrived! 2026 is about execution, accountability, and results," said Russ Fordyce, Chief Recognition Officer, Business Intelligence Group. "Locus Robotics stood out because its work in supply chain and logistics reflects where the market is headed: practical AI that solves real problems, earns trust, and delivers measurable value. This recognition highlights a team that is not just participating in the AI shift but helping define what meaningful progress looks like." "We are honored to be recognized in the 2026 Artificial Intelligence Excellence Awards for our work in supply chain and logistics," said Rick Faulk, CEO of Locus Robotics. "This award reflects the talent of our team, the trust of our customers, and our commitment to building AI solutions that create real outcomes, not just headlines. In an industry defined by constant change, this means helping our customers operate with confidence, not uncertainty. We believe the future of AI belongs to organizations that can pair innovation with responsibility, and we are proud to be part of that movement." The Artificial Intelligence Excellence Awards celebrate the people and organizations leading the next phase of AI adoption, where innovation is judged not just by novelty, but by impact. Winners are selected based on how effectively they are using AI to improve performance, reduce friction, solve meaningful problems, and move their industries forward. About Locus Robotics Locus Robotics is the leader in Flexibility-First Warehouse Automation, delivering Operational Confidence to warehouse operators navigating an environment defined by constant uncertainty. Locus Robotics enables organizations to plan, execute, and adapt across volume volatility, labor variability, and evolving order profiles. Powered by the LocusONE platform, Locus Robotics orchestrates fulfillment workflows across picking, replenishment, sorting, and pack-out through a unified system of robotics, orchestration, and applied AI. The platform provides predictive visibility, adaptive decision-making, and elastic execution - giving operations leaders clear insight into capacity, throughput, and risk without fixed infrastructure or disruptive facility redesigns. Trusted by more than 150 retail, healthcare, 3PL, and industrial brands across 350+ sites worldwide, Locus Robotics supports operations at every stage of the automation journey. Delivered through an industry-first Robots-as-a-Service (RaaS) model, Locus Robotics enables performance to evolve as operational needs change. About the Artificial Intelligence Excellence Awards Since 2013, the Artificial Intelligence Excellence Awards recognize organizations, products, teams, and individuals leveraging AI technology to solve real-world problems. The program evaluates advances across 46 major AI application types and 36 industries, celebrating innovations that improve the human experience and advance society as a whole. Judged by a panel of experienced business executives who provide transparent feedback and detailed scoring, the awards honor those dedicated to using AI as a force for good. About Business Intelligence Group Business Intelligence Group (BIG) is an independent awards organization that has been recognizing outstanding achievement in business since 2012. Now in its 14th awards season, BIG operates 12 annual programs spanning innovation, artificial intelligence, cybersecurity, customer service, cloud computing, sustainability, sales and marketing, workplace culture, and women's leadership. Business award programs include the BIG Innovation Awards, AI Excellence Awards, Fortress Cyber Security Awards, Excellence in Customer Service Awards, Stratus Awards for Cloud Computing, Sustainability Awards, SAMMY Awards for Sales and Marketing, Best Places to Work Awards, Herizon Awards, Locus Robotics Inc. Love Tech Awards, NAA Top Employers Award, and BIG Awards for Business. Unlike popularity contests, BIG programs use professional judging panels and objective scoring benchmarks to identify organizations, products, and individuals making real, measurable impact. Winners receive a complete promotional toolkit - including blockchain-verified credentials, press release support, social media assets, and featured placement across BIG's global community of more than one million business professionals. Eliana Starbird Chief Nominations Officer Business Intelligence Group +1 909-529-2737 [email protected]

Why Locus Robotics Inc. introduced Robots-to-Goods and what it means for the future of fulfillment. Every meaningful shift in warehouse automation starts with a simple question: how do Locus Robotics Inc. help operations perform with greater confidence tomorrow than they do today? For warehouse leaders, confidence has become increasingly difficult to sustain as demand patterns move unpredictably; labor availability fluctuates; and SKU complexity continues to rise. Planning cycles that once felt reliable now require constant adjustment. Its journey toward Robots-to-Goods (R2G) with Locus Array is rooted in helping operators navigate that uncertainty with greater clarity, control, and resilience. This evolution did not happen overnight. It reflects years spent inside live fulfillment environments, understanding what drives performance, and recognizing where the next opportunity exists. Looking back provides important context for why this next step matters. Learning from the first wave of warehouse robotics. When Al Dekin, Sean Johnson, Bruce Welty, and I founded Quiet Logistics, warehousing was still largely manual. Leading operators delivered strong service levels, but the work itself was physically demanding and difficult to scale with precision. Even then, the underlying challenge was clear that without adaptability, operational confidence is always at risk. Its introduction to Kiva Systems came at precisely the right moment. Even in its earliest form, the idea was compelling - a robot brings inventory directly to a worker, reducing travel time and eliminating unnecessary touches. It introduced a simpler and more predictable way to move product through the building. Two principles quickly anchored its thinking. The first was flexibility. Traditional automation often required fixed infrastructure that divided facilities and limited an operator's ability to respond when conditions changed. The second was simplicity. Warehousing appears linear from the outside - pick an item, pack it, and ship it - yet anyone running a facility understands the number of decisions and handoffs required to complete that process. Streamlining those steps creates consistency, and consistency builds confidence. As eCommerce accelerated, robotics allowed Locus Robotics Inc. to test these ideas at scale. But early deployments also revealed important constraints. Implementation timelines were longer than Locus Robotics Inc. wanted; throughput ceilings appeared sooner than expected; and scaling capacity was not always as seamless as modern operations require. Those lessons clarified something important: true operational confidence requires flexibility, adaptability, and scalable performance. Designing for scale with Person-to-Goods. After Amazon acquired Kiva, Locus Robotics Inc. asked a direct question: What if Locus Robotics Inc. could design a solution from the ground up, what would Locus Robotics Inc. do differently? The answer became the Person-to-Goods (P2G) model. Instead of relying on fixed automation, Locus Robotics Inc. created an open environment where robots could move dynamically throughout an existing facility. Capacity could expand simply by introducing additional robots through the Robots-as-a-Service (RaaS) relationship and extending parallel workflows. When demand increased, the operation could respond without reengineering the building. Equally important, Locus Robotics Inc. focused on measurable return on investment. Automation must create durable value for the organizations running these facilities every day - value they can depend on as conditions evolve. P2G delivered on that objective as warehouse operations that once processed roughly 45,000 units per day began exceeding 100,000. Productivity rose, flexibility improved, and collaboration between people and robots became a defining operational advantage. Yet progress has a way of sharpening the next question. Even as these gains took hold, Locus Robotics Inc. began asking how Locus Robotics Inc. could help operators move from reacting to change toward operating with greater certainty. The next frontier was mobile manipulation. Person-to-Goods fundamentally changed how warehouses scale. It delivered measurable productivity gains, faster deployments, and the flexibility to adapt as conditions shifted. For many operations, that model remains the right solution. But technology continues to advance. Over the past several years, mobile manipulation capabilities have progressed rapidly. Improvements in robotic perception, gripping precision, and AI-driven motion planning reached a level where Locus Robotics Inc. believed the timing was right to invest. The question was no longer whether robots could assist people. It was whether they could take on a broader set of workflows within defined environments - reliably and at scale. That exploration led to the Robots-to-Goods model. With Locus Array, robots perform putaway, picking, inventory movement, and deplenishment within an automated zone. Instead of supporting a human through the workflow, the robot executes it. Capacity scales by adding robots, not fixed infrastructure. This represents an expansion of the Locus Robotics portfolio - not a shift away from collaboration, but an extension of it. Where Person-to-Goods delivers flexibility across diverse SKU profiles, Robots-to-Goods introduces deeper automation in environments well-suited to robotic execution. Together, they allow operators to layer automation intentionally, matching the right model to the right workflow. Mobile manipulation made that next step possible. The result is an even broader path to operational confidence. A more automated facility design. The emerging blueprint for modern fulfillment includes a highly automated zone where R2G operates at scale. Early deployments often center on smaller, highly pickable items that represent a meaningful share of total volume to allow operators to stabilize throughput quickly. Orders requiring additional handling transition seamlessly to collaborative robots in a pick-and-pass flow. Some orders move from induction to shipping with minimal human involvement, while others benefit from human expertise at precisely the right moment. The result is operational balance - automating a large percentage of work while preserving the versatility needed to manage diverse SKU profiles. That balance is what enables confidence at scale. Customers recognize this potential quickly. In one production environment, putaway and picking were executed autonomously by Locus Array robots while associates focused on other key downstream activities. Orders continued to move through the system even while employees were away from the floor, allowing the operation to begin the next shift already ahead on volume and service-level commitments. Momentum like that changes how leaders think about their operation. Instead of asking whether they can keep up, they begin asking how far they can scale. There is also a practical advantage during overnight hours, when staffing can be more challenging. Autonomous workflows keep product moving, so morning teams arrive to progress rather than backlog - reinforcing a sense of operational control. Across industries, the opportunity continues to expand. Cosmetics, healthcare, and small-parts environments often lend themselves to higher levels of automation today due to SKU consistency. Retail introduces greater variety, yet capabilities continue to advance as AI models grow more sophisticated. Its objective is straightforward: expand automation thoughtfully while giving operators the confidence to adapt without disruption. Why this shift matters now. Warehouse leaders are operating in an environment defined not just by change, but by continuous variability. Demand patterns shift quickly; labor markets remain tight; and expectations for speed continue to rise. Operational confidence is no longer a long-term aspiration - it has become an immediate leadership priority. Robots-to-Goods provides a path toward that confidence by combining deeper automation with scalable design. Organizations can automate more while preserving the flexibility required to navigate what comes next. Most technology journeys follow a natural progression. First, you simplify the work. Then you scale it. Eventually, you redefine who - or what - performs it. R2G represents the next step. The goal has never been automation for its own sake. It has always been about helping warehouses operate with greater clarity, respond with greater precision, and move forward with confidence regardless of what the environment demands. Because if the past several years has taught this industry anything, it is that the strongest operations are not those built for stability - they are built for adaptability, and adaptability is what ultimately makes confidence possible. If you're evaluating how automation can support your next phase of growth, connect with the team at Locus Robotics to explore what a strategy built around the full fleet - Locus Origin, Locus Vector, and Locus Array - could look like inside your operation. Mike's 30 years of technical and business leadership experience inform everything from the design of its robots to tackling the practical challenges of a rapidly scaling organization. Nimbly navigating EBITDA, ROI, UPH, CPU, UPO, SLA, FIFO, XML, SQL, C++, and AWS, to name a few, Mike is a logistics industry veteran and expert who intrinsically understands the operational challenges of its customers. He has been instrumental in establishing Locus Robotics as a leader in the Logistics and AMR space, exemplifying its focus on technology in service to the real-world needs of warehouse operators around the globe.

IKEA has acquired U.S.-based AI logistics firm Locus to enhance its U.S. operations and online sales. The acquisition is part of a larger $2.2 billion investment in the U.S. market by Ingka Group. Locus' technology is expected to save IKEA approximately €100 million ($117 million) annually by automating logistics processes. Locus will continue to operate independently, serving its existing clients. The deal's value was undisclosed, but Locus was valued at $300 million in 2021.