Ask HN: How to transition into Robotics

I would very much like to work on robotics in almost any capacity and am wondering if anyone can share any tips on how I might be able to break into the industry.

I’ve got about 5 years of full stack development experience and a EE degree. Right now I work more on the server side of things, and would like to continue writing software as my job but just for robotics. I know this experience won’t directly translate over to robotics but I do feel like I would be able to get up to speed quickly using my experience.

Any advice or knowledge from people looking to do the same thing / are already working on robotics would be very much appreciated

7 points | by hdks 1 day ago

5 comments

  • chfritz 22 hours ago
    As I describe before here https://www.linkedin.com/advice/0/heres-how-you-can-stay-ahe..., many roboticists overlook the need for JavaScript in their skill set and tech stack. This is because of the evolution of robotics projects and companies: first you build a prototype and only then do you deploy and scale your fleet. The first part is hard and doesn't require any JS. But the second part is even harder and requires a ton of JS, because without web-tooling you won't be able to operate efficiently. This offers a great opportunity for roboticists to distinguish themselves from others be mastering JS for both the backend (rosnodejs, rclnodejs) and the front-end (React, Transitive Robotics). This sets you apart from both "regular" roboticists and from "pure" web developers.

    What I'm trying to say: robotics is a very broad field and your current full-stack skills are needed just as well. And while working on those aspects of the robotics stack you can learn about the rest if you want. But you don't even have to to progress in your career in the robotics industry.

    If you want to work on something specific, you can try to build a capability ("full-stack app") on Transitive, the open-source full-stack framework for robotics we've built that works with any robots, esp. ROS ones: https://github.com/transitiverobotics/transitive. Oh and of course learn ROS along the way.

  • jsumm1942 7 hours ago
    If there is a local FIRST robotics team, especially at the FRC level, consider volunteering to help out. At the larger events, you will even be able to make contact with parts vendors and other organizations.
  • sgillen 20 hours ago
    Robotics is sorely lacking front end devs and UI/UX guys. Most companies won’t hire any until they are already pretty established, but they might hire some. You can check out companies like foxglove who make GUI tools that robotics companies then pay to use.
  • caprock 1 day ago
    Find example companies, find their current or past jobs postings (maybe use the wayback machine), and identify the specific technology and techniques they request. Use that to write a map and plan.

    Start using those technologies and building things. Write or at least post about it on X and follow related engineers on X. See kache's robotics journeyman community as one place for inspiration.

    [-]
    • hnthrowaway0315 21 hours ago
      I just visit that journeyman community and looks like they are pretty stringent about that weekly update.
  • bigyabai 1 day ago
    How do you feel about inverse kinematics?
    [-]
    • hdks 1 day ago
      That’s fine