Robot Client SDK Engineer (human)

Your Mission & Challenges

protoc + buf toolchain for client-side code generation; CI pipelines regenerate clients on every proto change

Python client SDK: idiomatic wrappers with context managers, async/await variants, IDE completion stubs, pip wheels published to internal PyPI

C++ client SDK: RAII channel lifecycle, async, language-idiomatic exception hierarchy, Conan/vcpkg packages

Java client SDK: builder patterns for requests, CompletableFuture, Maven Central artifacts

Channel lifecycle handling across languages: timeouts, deadline propagation, reconnection logic, TLS/mTLS configuration

gRPC status to language-idiomatic exception mapping: hierarchical exception types with semantically meaningful subclasses

Client/server version-skew compatibility tables—published policies on client-server version support, automated compatibility tests

Semantic versioning aligned with the platform architect, deprecation policy enforcement with linter warnings, migration guides

Simulation-mode toggle inside the client: same proto interface, simulation backend for offline app development

Observability hooks per language: structured logging, OpenTelemetry tracing context propagation, Prometheus client metrics

Reference example applications per language demonstrating canonical patterns: pick-and-place, mode switching, fault recovery, telemetry streaming

Auto-generated documentation per language: Sphinx (Python), Doxygen (C++), Javadoc (Java); examples kept in sync with API surface

Internal customer onboarding: skill bundles, evaluation harnesses, R&D notebooks, demo apps—all start from your reference template

RFC co-review with the Robot Platform Integration Engineer on every proto change

What we can look forward to

Developer experience with platform SDKs—has shipped client libraries used by external or internal customers.

Proficient in at least two: modern Python (typing, asyncio, pyproject.toml/wheels), modern C++ (17/20, async patterns, build systems), Java (CompletableFuture, Maven build).

Hands-on with gRPC ecosystem: protoc, buf, grpc-python, grpc-java, grpc-cpp—has implemented production clients.

Multi-language packaging: manylinux pip wheels, Conan or vcpkg recipes, Maven Central publishing—experienced with full CI pipelines.

API design fluency: gRPC/REST/GraphQL, semantic versioning, deprecation policy authorship, backwards-compatibility analysis.

Documentation tooling: Sphinx, Doxygen, MkDocs; capable of owning end-to-end documentation deliverables.

Cross-language async patterns: understands trade-offs among sync, async, and streaming gRPC across languages and their ergonomic differences

Nice to have

Familiarity with robotics or industrial control to discuss latency and timing semantics with robot platform engineers

Experience writing language bindings for a native library (PyBind11, JNI, SWIG, cppyy)

Authored OpenTelemetry instrumentation libraries across multiple languages

Working knowledge of ROS 2 client library design (rclpy / rclcpp)

Written a developer-portal API reference or SDK tutorial series for external developers