Applied AI Engineer - Consumer Robotics & Voice Systems

**Location:** San Francisco, CA (on-site/hybrid, 5 days/week) **Type:** Full-time hours, hourly contract-to-hire (W-2) **Pay:** $40–$80/hour, depending on experience **Schedule:** 40 hours/week **Expected duration: 1–3 months, with possible extension** **Start**: As soon as possible About Rhem Rhem Labs is a YC-backed consumer robotics company making personal health companions for the home. We're working on our first two products: * **Rhemy** is a tabletop companion robot you can talk to.

It helps you keep track of your health, manage appointments and routines, call family, and get everyday tasks done. * **Rhosie** is a droid with two arms and a wheeled base. We're building it to bring physical help into the home, not just conversation. For both, the challenge starts with making a robot that can understand you naturally, remember what you need, and follow through. What you'll work on * Build and integrate full-duplex voice models that listen and speak naturally, including streaming audio, barge-in, interruptions, turn-taking, and latency optimization. * Design AI orchestration so the assistant can select tools, call APIs, execute multi-step tasks, and reliably manage background work across conversations. * Run and debug the voice and agent stack on Android and embedded hardware, including microphones, speakers, audio pipelines, and device-level integration. * Test on the actual tabletop device, identify failures end-to-end, and ship improvements quickly with the founding team.

What we're looking for * Real-time voice AI

experience:

hands-on work with duplex speech-to-speech models or comparable low-latency streaming voice systems. You understand audio streaming, turn-taking, and interruption handling. * AI orchestration

experience:

you've built agent workflows with tool/function calling, state management, async jobs, failure handling, and real-world integrations—not just chat demos. * Android + device integration: experience developing or integrating software on Android, and comfort debugging audio and software on physical embedded devices. * Strong Python skills; ability to own, debug, and ship features independently. * Available on-site in San Francisco, 40 hours per week, with an ASAP start. *

Nice to have:

• Kotlin/Java, C++, WebRTC, Android audio APIs, audio DSP/echo cancellation, or embedded Linux.
• Robotics experience is not required.
• Why join You'll work directly with the founders on some of the hardest problems in voice AI and consumer robotics.
• You'll own core parts of Rhemy's voice and agent systems, ship code directly to hardware, and have the freedom to make real technical decisions.
• We're hiring initially on a 1–3 month contract, with the opportunity to transition into a full-time founding engineering role as we grow.