Software Engineer - Robotics Platform

We're looking for someone who approaches the role with intentionality. Someone who plans changes thoughtfully, communicates their reasoning, and builds toward a healthier codebase over time. Not someone who ships fixes without considering the broader impact.

This is a mid-to-senior level role. We're looking for 3 to 5+ years of software engineering experience, with at least 2 years working in Rust specifically.

Requirements:

• Fundamentals
  • Strong foundation in algorithms, data structures, and core software engineering principles. Able to reason about complexity, trade-offs, and correctness, not just produce working code.
• Rust
  • Strong, idiomatic Rust: ownership, lifetimes, trait design, error handling.
  • Concurrency primitives and understanding of deadlock risk and lock ordering.
  • Experience with cargo workspace projects: multiple crates, feature flags, build configuration.
  • Comfort with unsafe Rust: raw pointers, FFI boundaries, C ABI interop.
• Systems Programming
  • Shared library / DLL design (cdylib crates, symbol export, runtime loading).
  • Cross-boundary serialization: understanding of protobuf or similar wire formats.
  • Experience with plugin/extension architectures (runtime DLL loading, manifest-driven discovery).
  • Threading models: dedicated worker threads, channel-based serialization of calls, supervision hierarchies.
• Hardware Communication
  • Familiarity with low-level communication protocols (TCP/UDP sockets, serial, WebSocket, REST, SPI, I2C, etc.) in a systems-language context.
  • Ability to read and debug hardware communication logs, identify protocol-level issues, and work with firmware engineers to resolve them.
  • Comfort integrating with custom or proprietary hardware interfaces. Not necessarily designing the control logic, but owning the software layer that talks to it.
• Code Quality and Maintainability
  • Disciplined approach to testing: unit tests, integration tests, test feature flags, mock hardware substitutes.
  • Ability to identify and address technical debt without over-engineering.
  • Clear API design. Keeping public surfaces minimal and stable.
  • Code review skills: spotting correctness issues, concurrency hazards, and abstraction leaks.
• Frontend
  • Working knowledge of TypeScript and React. Able to understand components and UI architecture patterns.
  • Familiarity with WebSocket servers, HTTP servers, or protocol multiplexing in Rust (tokio / async ecosystem).
  • Familiarity with Tauri (Rust + web frontend desktop app framework) for cross-stack debugging and feature work.

Ways of Working

• Self-starter who takes ownership of problems end-to-end, from investigation through to a clean, reviewed solution. Able to identify and remove blockers rather than waiting for them to be cleared.
• Plans changes before implementing. Writes up intent, considers impact on adjacent systems, and seeks review before making significant modifications.
• Communicates proactively with the team, especially when working near domain boundaries (e.g. control logic, firmware, hardware behaviour).
• Comfortable working without full domain context. Able to read code, ask the right questions, and contribute meaningfully alongside specialists.
• Proficiency with git, structured PR/review workflows, TDD, and multi-language apps.
• Experience with large, enterprise codebases and multi-repo projects.

Nice to have

• Experience with real-time or high-frequency control loops, zero-allocation hot paths.
• Exposure to robotics, haptics, teleoperation, or motion control concepts. Not required, but accelerates ramp-up.
• A genuine interest in robotics and human-machine interfaces. Curiosity about the domain goes a long way in a team moving fast at the intersection of hardware and software.
• Protobuf schema design and versioning.
• Profiling tools and performance analysis (knowledge of Tracy Profiler is a big plus).
• Advanced TypeScript / React: deep knowledge of the type system, state management patterns, performance optimization.
• Experience with TOML-based configuration schemas or manifest-driven plugin systems.
• Structured logging and observability tooling.
• OS-agnostic development (knowledge of bash and Linux as well as PowerShell and Windows).
• Experience working on DevOps in a GitLab environment.
• Bilingual French/English. Working environment is bilingual.

Why Join

• HARP is the centre of gravity for our robotics work. What you ship reaches every robot integration we have.
• Real hardware, real users, short feedback loops.
• Codebase actively migrating from a Python prototype to a Rust production platform. The architecture is being shaped now.
• On-site in Montreal: modern downtown office.

To apply: send a CV and a few links (GitHub, GitLab, crates you've published, anything Rust you're proud of). Cover letters welcome but optional. Show us code instead.