About Transfyr

Transfyr is building physical AI for science, and the world’s largest commercial dataset on real-world scientific execution.

Why is it that a professional athlete has dramatically more information about every play they make than a scientist has about the cause of any experimental failure? At Transfyr, we are building the infrastructure to make real-world scientific work legible, transferable, and reproducible. Right now this looks like: sensors (vision, audio, environmental, etc.) in real laboratory environments, and a platform that records and analyzes multimodal data about how scientific work is performed. This foundation is critical not only for driving elite human performance today, but for enabling meaningful automation tomorrow.

Want to learn more? You can read some of our writings here.

The Role

Systems/Robotics Engineers at Transfyr design, build, and deploy the physical compute and sensor infrastructure that makes real-world science legible.

You will focus on the end-to-end deployment of multi-sensor arrays and edge compute systems, driving sensor selection, integration, and software development for reliable operation in complex laboratory workflows. Your work will demand strong engineering fundamentals, high agency, and comfort operating where requirements emerge from customers’ reality rather than specs.

This role is in-person in Cambridge, MA.

What you’ll accomplish with us:

• Hardware/Sensor Requirements Gathering: Lead the end-to-end process of sensor selection and requirements gathering (resolution, fidelity, environmental robustness) for multi-sensor arrays, balancing performance with size, weight, power, and cost (SWaP-C) considerations.

• Hardware & Sensor Procurement: Manage sensor and hardware procurement timelines and logistics, working to anticipate needs for scaling and mitigating unanticipated time sinks.

• Edge System Networking & Software Architecture: Design and implement extensible and robust edge software architecture and networking to support hot-swappable and scalable components, focusing on "engineering for optionality."

• Sensor/Hardware Integration (Software): Develop software integration for new hardware and sensors, creating templated solutions while addressing case-by-case integration difficulties.

• Sensor Calibration & Sync: Oversee and implement procedures for multi-sensor calibration and synchronization to ensure high data quality.

• Make It Robust: Develop reliable infrastructure that supports both rapid iteration and production-grade robustness.

• Structure Reality: Collaborate closely with AI and ML engineers, perception engineers, scientists, and operations teams to translate evolving real world needs into robust software abstractions.

• Enable What Comes Next: Evaluate and integrate external tools, open source software, and infrastructure components where they accelerate progress.

Who you are:

• High agency. You don’t wait for perfect specs, detailed tickets, or constant direction. You notice what needs to be done, anticipate downstream needs, and take ownership of pushing important work across the finish line.

• Biased toward action. You value momentum, can move quickly without being careless, and know when to trade elegance for progress.

• Successful in ambiguity. You can turn incomplete context into working software, ask the right questions when needed, and make reasonable assumptions when answers aren’t available yet.

• Thoughtful. You can balance speed, correctness, and long-term maintainability, and you understand that the right tradeoff depends on the moment.

• Clear, direct communicator. You close loops, surface issues early, and work effectively with colleagues who may not share your technical background.

• Intense. You care deeply about the mission, are willing to work hard when it matters, and take pride in helping a small team do outsized work.

What you know:

• How to build systems: Experience designing, deploying, and maintaining edge compute hardware and sensor systems in physical environments.

• Robotics & Systems Software: Strong background in software development for hardware/robotics, particularly for managing and integrating physical hardware interfaces and high-volume multimodal data streams (vision, audio, environmental).

• Python, Rust, et al: Fluency in Python and/or Rust, and the ability to work productively in other languages as the system requires. We value strong fundamentals, curiosity, and the ability to learn quickly over familiarity with specific tools.

• Data / Infrastructure: Experience with infrastructure-as-code and managing edge-to-cloud data transfers, particularly for data intensive or backend systems.

Other things we like to see:

• A passion for science

• A passion for and experience with AI

• Demonstrated experience working in fast-moving/ambiguous environments (like startups!)

The basics:

• Competitive compensation (cash + equity)

• Full benefits (low/no-cost health insurance options, HSA, 401K with matching, lunch subsidy, etc.)

• Well-funded startup led by industry leaders: founders Anna Marie Wagner (Ginkgo Bioworks, Bain Capital) and Renee Wegrzyn (DARPA, Ginkgo Bioworks, ARPA-H).