Principal Software Engineer - Robotics Platform

We are seeking a senior software engineering leader with experience in robotics platforms, cloud services, automation, and distributed systems to define and build OCI’s Robotics Automation platform. Oracle Cloud Infrastructure is building new platform capabilities that help scientific and enterprise customers automate complex physical workflows across laboratory instruments, robotics systems, scientific data, and cloud services. We are seeking a Principal Software Engineer to help design and build the Robotics Automation Platform. This is a senior hands-on individual-contributor role for an engineer who can lead the design and implementation of core platform services while working closely with Product Management, Shared Experience & Authoring, Applied Science, OCI platform teams, customers, and automation vendors. You will build the foundation for the first Robotics Automation pilots and help establish a platform that can support additional instruments, robots, workflows, and customers over time. The platform will enable customers to define, run, monitor, troubleshoot, and improve automated workflows safely and reliably. This role does not own the Shared Compute Service or operate customer-owned HPC and GPU infrastructure. It will integrate with shared-compute capabilities where needed to support scientific and robotics workflows. Location Greater London or Oxford, United Kingdom. The role is hybrid and requires travel to the Oxford office as needed for meetings, laboratory work, integration, and pilot support. What You’ll Do Lead the design and implementation of core Robotics Automation Platform services, APIs, data models, and integration patterns. Build orchestration capabilities that coordinate multi-step laboratory and robotics workflows across instruments, robots, scientific applications, and cloud services. Define how the platform represents equipment capabilities, operational state, configuration, commands, events, errors, workflow progress, and workflow results. Build reusable integration patterns for laboratory instruments, liquid handlers, robot arms, sensors, workflow tools, ELN/LIMS platforms, scheduling systems, and vendor APIs. Design secure controls for access, approvals, policy enforcement, audit history, traceability, human review, and safe recovery from failed workflow runs. Define the events, metrics, logs, and telemetry needed for monitoring, dashboards, troubleshooting, capacity planning, and product decisions. Partner with Shared Experience & Authoring to enable administrator experiences, workflow monitoring, and troubleshooting experiences. Work with Product Management, customers, scientists, and automation vendors to translate real operating workflows and constraints into durable platform capabilities. Establish technical standards for performance, reliability, observability, security, testing, and operational readiness. Develop and validate pilot-ready capabilities using simulation, integration environments, hardware-in-the-loop testing, and real customer workflows where appropriate. Design modular services and connectors so new instruments, robotics platforms, workflow types, and customers can be added without redesigning the platform. Lead technical design reviews, resolve complex cross-team technical issues, mentor engineers, and communicate technical trade-offs clearly to engineering and product stakeholders. Qualifications Minimum Qualifications BS or MS in Computer Science, Robotics, Electrical Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Bioengineering, or a related technical discipline, or equivalent experience. 6+ years of software engineering, systems engineering, robotics engineering, or equivalent technical experience. Experience designing and delivering distributed systems, cloud services, workflow orchestration platforms, scheduling systems, or enterprise automation products. Strong hands-on software development experience in Java, Go, C++, Python, or similar languages. Experience designing APIs, service interfaces, data models, event-driven systems, and operational telemetry. Experience building reliable services with fault handling, retry behavior, auditability, observability, and security controls. Strong analytical, written, and cross-functional communication skills. Preferred Qualifications Experience with laboratory automation, scientific instruments, robotics, industrial automation, or hardware-software integration. Experience integrating liquid handlers, robot arms, imaging systems, sensors, scheduling tools, ELN/LIMS platforms, or vendor APIs. Experience with workflow orchestration, device control, equipment state management, or automation middleware. Experience with simulation, hardware-in-the-loop testing, end-to-end system testing, field validation, or production troubleshooting. Familiarity with scientific workflows, life sciences, biotechnology, bioprocessing, or regulated laboratory environments. Experience working directly with technically demanding customers, scientists, lab operators, automation engineers, or equipment vendors. Demonstrated ability to lead major technical decisions independently and influence across teams without formal authority.