Robotics Engineering Report 2026

Robotics hiring and industry statistics: what the numbers say

1. Anduril Industries has the most open robotics engineering roles by far: 1,434 of the 4,010 we count (36%). Every other tracked employer combined lists 2,576, so the totals below also show the market without it.
2. Defense and autonomous vehicles lead robotics hiring, but the field is wide. Defense, drones and marine autonomy accounts for 49% of open engineering roles. Without Anduril Industries, the largest segment is autonomous vehicles and trucking (28%), then defense, drones and marine autonomy (21%).
3. The typical robotics engineering job posts a base salary around $197K. That is the median midpoint of 1,878 posted pay ranges; staff and principal roles post about $235K, against $175K for titles with no level. Base pay only: equity at venture-backed robotics companies is on top.
4. Python is the skill robotics employers ask for most. In 2,239 engineering job descriptions we could read, the most-named skills are Python (49%), C++ (38%), Linux (18%). 27% of all postings with a description mention a security clearance, US citizenship or export-control (ITAR) requirement.
5. The San Francisco Bay Area has the most robotics engineering openings, 1,278 at 35 tracked employers, ahead of Los Angeles and Orange County (1,101). Next come Boston (374), Seattle (187), Austin (155). Only 2% of engineering roles are open to remote candidates.
6. Robotics venture funding hit a record. Crunchbase counted $18.8B of global robotics venture funding by mid-June 2026, more than all of 2025 ($15B), then $9.9B in the third quarter excluding defense, against $4.3B a year earlier.
7. Official statistics barely register the boom. BLS has no separate count of robotics engineers; it files them under "engineers, all other" (154,070 jobs nationally, median $122,930) and projects about 8,800 openings a year for that whole group.

What this means for robotics hiring managers

• Budget for the posted market, not the BLS median.Robotics engineering roles post a median base of $197K (middle half $165K to $230K), well above the $122,930 all-industry median. Post a real range: candidates in California, Washington, New York and Colorado will see everyone else's.
• Expect the most competition in Los Angeles and Orange County. There are about 34 open robotics engineering roles for every 1,000 engineers who already work there. Outside the big clusters, Texas, the Southeast and the Midwest have deep mechanical, electrical and controls talent and far fewer robotics employers competing for it.
• Screen for the stack, then for the robot.Python and C++ appear in most engineering postings. Candidates from automotive, aerospace, semiconductors and industrial automation often have them without the word "robotics" on their resume.
• Clearance and citizenship narrow the pool.About 27% of postings we could read require a clearance, US person status or ITAR eligibility, mostly at defense robotics companies. Start those searches early and say so in the posting.

Robotics companies hiring now: most open US engineering roles

Open engineering and science roles in the United States at each employer we track, read directly from its public job board. "All roles" adds technicians, operators and business roles; internships are counted separately.

Counts come from each employer's public careers feed and refresh weekly. A role listed in several US cities counts once. Amazon Robotics counts only jobs on the Amazon Robotics team. "New in 30 days" uses the first-posted date where the board gives one ("–" means it does not; Workday dates reset when a job is refreshed, so they are not used). Tesla and others without a machine-readable job feed are not included, so totals understate national demand. Last read: November 1, 2026. Download this table as CSV.

Robotics engineering roles by segment, type of work and seniority

Without Anduril Industries, engineering roles by segment are: autonomous vehicles and trucking 723; defense, drones and marine autonomy 530; warehouse and logistics 379; humanoids and general-purpose robots 255; medical and surgical robotics 190; industrial and manufacturing automation 174; delivery and service robots 171; robot AI and foundation models 113; field, agriculture, construction and inspection 41. Type of work and seniority are read from each job title; titles that fit more than one group go to the first match. Business, operations and support includes program and product managers, analysts, supply chain and corporate roles.

What robotics employers are posting for pay

Base salary ranges that robotics employers publish in their own job postings, as required in California, Washington, New York, Colorado and other states. We take the midpoint of each posted range. Base pay only: bonuses and equity are not included.

By seniority

Rows with fewer than 15 postings are not shown. Pay comes from boards that publish it (Ashby and Lever pay fields, and ranges stated in Greenhouse and Amazon job descriptions); employers whose boards do not include descriptions, such as Anduril's, are not in the pay sample. For pay in a specific city, use our robotics engineer salary calculator.

The skills robotics employers ask for

Share of 2,239 robotics engineering job descriptions that name each skill.

Skills are matched by keyword in the job description (for example "ROS" or "ROS 2", "SolidWorks", "Isaac Sim"). Boards that do not publish descriptions are not in this sample.

Robotics engineering openings by metro, against the local engineering workforce

Open engineering roles at tracked employers in each metro, set against the engineers who already work there: mechanical, electrical, electronics and computer hardware engineers, "engineers, all other" (where BLS puts robotics engineers) and mechatronics technicians, from BLS (May 2025). Openings per 1,000 local engineers shows where robotics employers compete hardest for the same people.

A role offered in several metros counts toward the employer's home metro when that is one of them, otherwise the first US place listed. Remote US roles (81) count in the national total only. The Bay Area combines the San Francisco-Oakland and San Jose BLS metro areas; Denver and Boulder, Detroit and Ann Arbor, and Raleigh and Durham are combined the same way.

Robotics funding in 2026

Venture funding is the leading indicator for robotics hiring: most of a robotics startup's spending is engineering payroll, so a funded round turns into open roles within a quarter or two. Funding trackers draw the line around "robotics" differently, so each figure is shown with its own source and scope rather than added together.

The largest rounds raised by US robotics companies in 2026

Skild AI is not in the employer table above because it does not publish a machine-readable job board.

Robot orders: the demand behind controls and integration hiring

The startups above are only half of robotics hiring. Every robot a manufacturer orders has to be specified, integrated, programmed and maintained by controls engineers, robotics technicians and system integrators, most of whom work at plants and integration firms this report does not count.

Source: Association for Advancing Automation (A3), Aug 2026. North American orders from A3's reporting companies.

How many people do this work, what they earn, and how many openings a year

The government does not count robotics engineers on their own, so the honest way to size the workforce is by the occupations robotics teams hire from. Openings a year is BLS's projection of jobs to fill each year, from growth plus people retiring or changing careers.

Pay and jobs: BLS OEWS May 2025, national, all industries. Growth and openings: BLS Employment Projections 2025 to 2035; all occupations +3.5%.

How many robotics companies are there in the US?

There is no official count, because "robotics company" is not a government industry code. The closest federal figure is from the National Science Foundation: 25,839 US businesses with employees that performed or funded robotics and autonomous systems R&D (National Science Foundation, Annual Business Survey, 2021 data). That includes manufacturers automating their own plants. The number building robots as their main business is far smaller; this report tracks 51 of the most active venture-backed and public robotics employers that publish their job boards.

How to cite this report

How this report is built

• Employers: 51 venture-backed and public US robotics employers across humanoids, robot AI, warehouse, industrial, autonomous vehicles, defense, field, medical and service robotics, chosen because they publish a machine-readable job board. Tesla, NVIDIA and robotics teams inside large manufacturers are not included. We add employers as we confirm their boards.
• Open roles: every listing on each employer's public board, re-read weekly. A role counts as US when its location is a US state or city, or remote within the US; roles listed only outside the US, or with no readable location, are left out. Amazon Robotics counts only jobs on the Amazon Robotics team, each requisition once. A monthly snapshot is kept so changes can be compared over time. Last read: November 1, 2026.
• Engineering, type of work and seniority: read from the job title. Engineering roles are titles naming an engineer, scientist, developer or researcher in software, AI, controls, mechanical, electrical, embedded or manufacturing work. Internships and co-ops are counted separately.
• Pay and skills: from job descriptions and pay fields where the board publishes them. Pay is the midpoint of the posted base salary range, annual USD only.
• Metros: a role counts toward a metro when its listed city is in that metro. The local engineering workforce is BLS OEWS May 2025 employment, refreshed each spring.
• Funding and robot orders: published figures from Crunchbase, TechCrunch, The Robot Report and A3, each shown with its source, scope and date, and checked monthly.
• What it leaves out: employers without a public job feed, robotics teams inside large manufacturers, and system integrators. Treat the open-roles count as a floor, and as a like-for-like measure of change over time.