Robotics Automation Engineer

Robotics Automation Engineer – Fleet & Integration

Location: Portugal (On site)
Language: English

About Motion Robotics

At Motion Robotics, we design and build industrial-grade autonomous mobile robots (AMRs) that improve how factories and logistics operations move materials. Motion Robotics is part of the PowerHandling Group, a US-based company with more than 25 years designing and building material-handling technologies, with Motion Robotics being the division focused on autonomous machines.

We are an international team, working in Portugal on a range of AMRs and are now scaling up our operations, moving from ideas to prototypes and prototypes to volume production of machines. Mechanical, electrical and software engineering will all be happening here in Portugal, then expanding production and sales through the US parent, PowerHandling Inc.

We’re a multi-cultural, innovative, driven and international team that values practical problem-solving, collaboration, and hands-on engineering.

About the Role

We’re looking for an experienced automation / integration engineer to lead our team in developing and integrating software features for our mobile robots. You’ll work across hardware, software, and network layers to implement robot behaviors, integrate sensors and actuators, build lightweight front-end tools and support fleet-level integration.

This is a hands-on role where you'll contribute to projects that span from development to deployment — and see your work running in operational robots across industrial environments. This role involves international travel, with flexibility in frequency.

If you are also interested in participating in multiple areas of development, from mechanical design, electronics, networking, and even machining and prototyping, this role is for you.

What You’ll Do

• Lead the robotics implementation team with best practices for a reliable, maintainable and modular development structure that will be the foundation for our products.
• Develop and integrate high level software features for mobile robotic platforms so that they safely and efficiently transport carts and pallets.
• Configure sensors, actuators, and controllers on the robot.
• Write and maintain Python scripts executed on the robot and fleet manager.
  
• Interface our fleet manager to customers’ warehouse software systems.
• Test performance and reliability and find ways to improve the efficiency in operation of the robots.
  
• Analyze relevant standards and ideate features to ensure compliance with safety of machinery, mobile industrial robots and cybersecurity standards
  
• Collaborate with a cross-functional engineering team of around 10 people to come up with new ideas to differentiate our products in a way that fulfills customer’s needs.
  

What We’re Looking For

• 3 – 5 years experience in an industrial automation related role
• Experience interfacing software with hardware (sensors, actuators).
• Experience with communication protocols: CANopen, Modbus, OPC-UA, I²C.
• Good troubleshooting and debugging skills.
• Willingness to travel to deployment sites to validate our solutions and identify potential development opportunities.
• Understanding software development best practices, clean code, and version control.
• Familiarity with Python or similar programming languages.
• Ability to learn new languages, frameworks, or tools quickly as projects evolve.
• A willingness to brainstorm, iterate and look for creative solutions to problems.

Nice to Have

• Experience working with mobile robots.
• Knowledge of kinematics, dynamics, and motion control.
• Experience with commissioning projects on site at industrial facilities.
• Knowledge of safety standards ISO 3691-4 and ISO13849-1
• Familiarity with front-end frameworks such as React, Qt, or similar.
• Experience configuring infrastructure in industrial environments, on-premise or cloud based.

Why You’ll Love Working Here

• See your designs progress from concept to working robots used in real industrial settings.
  
• Be part of a multidisciplinary team supported by an established U.S. parent company.
  
• A competitive salary, balanced work life, and career growth opportunities as the company’s engineering and product lines expand.
  
• Relocation support and eligibility for Portugal’s NHR 2.0 program for foreign engineers (providing an advantageous tax treatment for 10 years).