Customer Engineer at Tutor Intelligence in Watertown, MA

The Company

Tutor Intelligence is building the technology and processes to let robots go where they’ve never gone before: the average American factory and warehouse. We understand that general-purpose and generally intelligent robots are going to be built in our lifetimes, and we’re not content to sit on the sidelines.

Founded by MIT alumni and backed with over $40M in funding by leading investors in AI and robotics, Tutor combines human and artificial intelligence to build something greater than the sum of its parts — a Tutor Intelligence. As an AI software company that deploys its inventions directly into the facilities that need them, every line of code, process change, and decision at Tutor has a direct impact on the physical economy.

The Role

We’re looking for a technically strong and deeply curious Customer Engineer to own how our robotic systems behave in the real world.

This role exists at the boundary between product and reality. You’ll work on the hardest problems — where software, hardware, and real-world operations intersect — turning messy, ambiguous system behavior into clear understanding and meaningful improvement.

You’ll partner closely with customers, Customer Success Managers, and our R&D team to investigate complex issues, identify root causes, and drive fixes that scale across the fleet.

While you’ll occasionally step into high-impact customer issues, your focus goes beyond resolution — ensuring we understand why problems occur and improving the system so they don’t happen again.

Responsibilities

• Own real-world system behavior. Build a deep understanding of how Tutor’s robotic systems perform across environments, configurations, and product types.

• Lead complex system investigations. Diagnose ambiguous issues across perception, motion, hardware, and operations using logs, telemetry, and on-site context.

• Drive root cause and system-level fixes. Go beyond resolving individual issues to identify underlying causes and prevent recurrence across the fleet.

• Identify and scale improvements. Recognize patterns across deployments and translate them into product fixes, configuration changes, or new capabilities.

• Operate at the boundary of engineering and deployment. Partner closely with R&D to test hypotheses, validate fixes in production, and improve overall system robustness.

• Engage directly with customers in high-impact situations. Step into critical issues when needed, building trust through technical credibility and clear communication.

• Elevate how the organization solves problems. Develop tools, debugging frameworks, and playbooks that improve how issues are diagnosed and resolved across the team.

Requirements

• 2–5 years of experience in robotics, automation, or complex hardware-software systems (e.g., robotics engineering, systems engineering, solutions engineering, or similar)

• Hands-on experience with real-world robotic or automation systems (required)

• Strong systems thinking — ability to understand and reason about how complex systems behave across software, hardware, and real-world environments

• Experience debugging ambiguous, real-world issues using logs, telemetry, and data to form and test hypotheses

• Ability to operate in unstructured environments and drive problems end-to-end from investigation through resolution

• Strong communication skills — able to clearly explain technical concepts to both engineers and non-technical stakeholders (e.g., operators, site leadership)

• Comfortable working cross-functionally with engineering, product, and customer-facing teams

• Willingness to engage directly with customers and spend time in production environments when needed

• High ownership and curiosity — you take problems to resolution and care about understanding root cause, not just symptoms

Nice to Haves (zero or more)

• Experience with robotic manipulation, perception systems, or motion planning
  • Exposure to warehouse, manufacturing, or industrial environments
  • Experience with debugging tools, scripting, or data analysis (Python, SQL, etc.)
  • Experience working closely with R&D teams to drive production fixes
  • Familiarity with deploying or supporting systems in live operational environments

Why This Role Is Unique

• Own the gap between product and reality. You’ll work on the hardest problems — where software, hardware, and real-world operations collide — and turn messy system behavior into real understanding.

• A true hybrid of engineering and field impact. This is not traditional support, and not pure R&D. You’ll operate at the boundary — combining deep technical work with direct exposure to real-world systems.

• Step into high-impact issues — and solve them at the root. You’ll engage in critical customer situations when needed, but your role is to go beyond resolution — driving root cause and preventing issues from recurring.

• Direct impact on system performance at scale. Your work doesn’t just fix individual issues — it improves how robots perform across the entire fleet.

• Be a force multiplier for engineering. You’ll bring structured, high-quality insight from the field that directly shapes product decisions and accelerates development.

• Help define how robotics systems scale in production. As Tutor grows, you’ll help build the frameworks, tools, and system understanding that make reliable, scalable deployments possible.