About p!ng

p!ng is building the fastest autonomous coffee drive-thru in the galaxy — combining robotics, AI, and radically better customer experience into a new kind of micro-retail platform. p!ng’s compact pod is designed to eliminate waiting in line. Customers order ahead, drive up, and receive custom, delicious beverages in under a minute. No scanning, no tipping, no hassle.

We’re reinventing the pick up experience from the ground up, using robotics and a first-principles approach to deliver quality, consistency, and speed at a scale no human-run chain could match. Our first autonomous site is live in Hudson, NH. Customer testing is underway with a full launch later this year. We're in our early stages, deploying pods and refining operations with the obsessiveness of a startup and the ambition of a category-defining company. This isn't a seat at an established table. It's a chance to build the table as we take on one of the biggest habits in America.

Our tech is cool, and we’ve been recognized by The Robot Report as one of the top 100 robotic startups in the world to watch. But the tech is the means, not the end. Everything we build exists in service of one thing: making the everyday lives of our customers better and more convenient. That’s the mission.

The Role

We couldn’t care less what your primary degree is in. We care that you understand a little about a lot of things, are genuinely curious about the things you don't know, and are quick to bridge the gaps.

p!ng sits at the intersection of robotics, embedded systems, software, electrical engineering, mechanical engineering, computer vision, and AI. We need an engineer who is comfortable moving between all of them.

You don't have to be an expert in everything. You need to be the person who can look at a problem, figure out what you need to learn, and engineer your way to a solution.  We don’t need band-aids and one-offs; we need better systems that don’t fail.

This is a systems engineering role at the intersection of software, robotics, embedded systems, electronics, and mechanical engineering.

You'll work across the entire p!ng platform—debugging problems, improving reliability, building automation and diagnostics, and developing engineering solutions that allow the system to operate with less human intervention.

The ideal candidate is someone who enjoys figuring out problems that don't fit neatly into one engineering discipline. One day you may be debugging a sensor or motor controller; the next you may be writing software, modifying a mechanical assembly, or designing a better way to detect and recover from a system fault.

The ultimate objective is simple: make p!ng increasingly autonomous and operationally robust.

What You'll Do

• Own system reliability and operational performance across the p!ng platform

• Diagnose problems spanning software, embedded systems, electrical, mechanical, and robotics

• Develop automated monitoring, diagnostics, fault detection, and recovery systems

• Identify recurring operational issues and engineer durable solutions

• Write software and firmware as needed to improve system performance and reliability

• Work with motors, actuators, sensors, cameras, controllers, computers, networking, and other robotic systems

• Design and prototype mechanical and electrical improvements

• Improve system observability through logging, telemetry, alerts, and remote diagnostics

• Rapidly prototype, test, measure, and iterate on solutions

• Help establish engineering practices and architectures as p!ng moves toward broader deployment

• Work closely with the existing engineering team across the full technology stack

• Continuously identify opportunities to eliminate manual intervention through better engineering

  
  

You Might Be a Strong Fit If You

• Have a strong engineering foundation in one discipline but enjoy working across several

• Can comfortably move between software, electronics, embedded systems, and mechanical problems

• Have experience with microcontrollers, sensors, motors, actuators, Linux, networking, or robotics

• Can write production-quality code and debug systems at the hardware/software boundary

• Are comfortable using tools such as a multimeter, oscilloscope, soldering iron, CAD software, or 3D printer

• Have strong debugging instincts and enjoy solving problems you've never encountered before

• Are highly self-directed and comfortable operating in an early-stage environment

• Prefer building systems that eliminate repetitive operational work rather than creating processes around it

• Fix things so they don’t need to be fixed again

• Are curious enough to learn whatever is necessary to solve the problem

  
  

Experience

A degree in mechanical, electrical, computer, robotics, mechatronics, or another engineering discipline is helpful, but demonstrated ability matters more than credentials.

Strong candidates may come from robotics, embedded systems, controls, software, mechatronics, automation, or another engineering background.

Most importantly, you've built things that go beyond one-offs and demos.  You’ve made real systems, dealt with things breaking in the real world, and figured out how to make them work better.

This Is More Than a Job

It's the beginning of a journey with us as a startup.

You're joining at a stage where the systems are being built, the problems are real, and your work can have an outsized impact. You'll have the opportunity to shape not just the technology, but how we engineer, operate, and ultimately scale p!ng.

We're looking for someone who wants to grow with the company, take on increasingly difficult problems, and eventually help build and lead the engineering organization that takes p!ng from a handful of prototypes to a large-scale autonomous network.

If you want to be part of building something from the ground up—and have a meaningful role in where it goes—this is that opportunity.