Senior Verification & Validation (V&V) Engineer - San Francisco

Overview

Polymath Robotics is creating software that can safely control all of the world's industrial vehicles, and we're looking for a Senior V&V Engineer to join our team. We're a small, close-knit group of roughly 20 people, each of us experts in our fields, working to bring autonomous vehicles to mining, agriculture, defense, and other industries quickly. We believe robotics and autonomy are at a tipping point, similar to how the PC industry reshaped the world in the 80s, and we need your help. Founded by Stefan Seltz-Axmacher (Founder of Starsky Robotics) and Ilia Baranov (Clearpath Robotics, Amazon Astro), we're building the autonomy stack we wish we had at our previous companies.

As our Senior V&V Engineer, you'll own how we prove our autonomy stack is ready — from simulation to lab to field. You'll author the test plans, acceptance criteria, and integrator handoff procedures that turn engineering work into accepted, paid milestones across every vehicle we deliver.

Responsibilities

• Own verification and validation architecture across the autonomy stack — author field test plans, simulation test cases, and acceptance test suites that scale across every vehicle of a given model.
• Write Integrator Acceptance Tests (IATs) — the structured procedures handed to integration partners to run before vehicles are delivered to Polymath.
• Define acceptance criteria and exit gates for each contract milestone, in close collaboration with engineering and program leads.
• Participate in design reviews to catch defects before they reach hardware — shift-left quality is the cheapest quality.
• Build test frameworks and plans that scale — write once, run many, with procedures clear enough that any trained executor produces reliable results.
• Perform hands-on testing for high-risk or novel functionality where engineering judgment is the bar.

Qualifications

• 4+ years in V&V, systems test, autonomy/AV test, or a closely related discipline.
• Demonstrated experience writing unambiguous test procedures — plans, acceptance criteria, and validation reports another engineer or technician can execute end-to-end without back-and-forth.
• Robotics or industrial systems domain knowledge — comfortable reasoning across mechanical, electrical, and software layers.
• Experience designing acceptance tests for hardware deliverables, including procedures handed to integration partners or customers for vehicle handoff.
• Strong structured thinking — you can decompose a fuzzy "the vehicle should work" requirement into a concrete pass/fail criterion.
• Test automation proficiency in any programming/scripting language, with comfort across Linux, and simulator-based test environments. ROS2 experience a strong plus.
• Track record of catching defects in design review, where they're cheapest to fix.
• Bonus: off-road autonomy experience, functional safety background, or experience building out a test function from scratch.

Why Join Polymath Robotics?

• Mission that matters: The vehicles we automate operate in places no human should have to be — steel mills with molten slag, fertilizer plants thick with chemical dust, and similar environments. Removing people from such conditions is our mission.
• Collaborative environment: Work alongside a tight-knit group of ~25 people, each expert in their field, on collaborative projects.
• Hybrid workplace: Enjoy the flexibility of a hybrid work model, with engineering based in our SF Mission office three days a week, giving a good balance of maker time and synchronization time.
• Open source advocacy: We strongly support open-source robotics efforts, and your work will be shareable and publishable wherever possible.
• Real impact in your first 90 days: You'll define the acceptance test framework for our two largest active contracts, ship your first IATs to integrator partners, and set the bar for how every vehicle we deliver gets accepted.
• Humor & passion: We might occasionally be a bunch of rosbags, but our passion and humor drive us to accelerate the realization of autonomous industrial vehicles.

Application Process:

Interested candidates are invited to submit their resume, and any relevant portfolio or project links. A cover letter is optional, but always appreciated.

Polymath Robotics is an equal-opportunity employer. We celebrate diversity and are committed to creating an inclusive environment for all employees. We don’t look for a “cultural fit”, we look for people who add to the culture.

Interview Process

Ideally we want to get through this process in 1 week, 2 worst case:

1. Intro call - 30 mins on Zoom
2. Technical Interview - 1 hr on Zoom or in person
3. Team Meet & Great - 1 hr in person, usually around lunch
   • Can be combined with Technical Interview
4. Founders Call - 30 mins on Zoom or in person