# James Riley

> SDE III, Amazon Robotics

Location: San Francisco, California, United States
Profile: https://flows.cv/jamesriley

Helping machines interface with people since 2013.

## Work Experience
### Software Development Engineer III @ Amazon Fulfillment Technologies & Robotics
Jan 2024 – Present | San Francisco, California, United States

### Senior Software Engineer @ Covariant
Jan 2024 – Jan 2024 | Emeryville, California, United States

### Staff Software Engineer @ Cucina, Inc
Jan 2023 – Jan 2024 | San Francisco
Lead developer of embedded software, middleware, and cloud services for our flagship product, BurgerChef, a fully autonomous restaurant device for grinding, cooking, and delivering 250 patties/hour.

Implemented major mechatronics software modules and features:
    - Vision, path planning, and motor control for dispensing sauces onto buns of variable shape and position.
    - Automation of manual homing and calibration processes for daily bring-up of griddle and grinder systems.
    - Griddle generator and motor control algorithms for cooking “smash-burger” patties.
    - Spatula arm motor control for removing smashed patties from uneven cooking surfaces.

Implemented critical middleware services and features:
        - Message service integration to auto-escalate machine notifications and errors to remote support, and to enable remote support to issue ad-noc notification to HMIs.
    - Service for reading sensors and serving results to embedded systems, removing the need for additional wiring and controller inputs.
    - Configuration synchronization during automated homing and calibration processes.

Implemented back-end features in cloud services and associated data pipelines for machine configuration and order management.

Implemented front-end features in human-machine interfaces.

Redesigned the existing compute stack and control architecture, and helped implement the consolidation three single-board computers, expansion boards, a supervisory controller, an on-premise rack server, and a router into a single IPC with PCI expansion.

### Senior Software Engineer @ Creator
Jan 2020 – Jan 2023 | San Francisco, California, United States
Lead developer of middleware and cloud services, and embedded software developer for the world’s first robotic burger restaurants.

Architected and developed middleware to perform critical functionality:
    - Monitoring and supervisory control of robots.
    - Management of active robot configurations and notifications.
    - Integration of robots, HMIs, and kiosks with cloud services and databases.

Architected, developed, and maintained cloud services:
    - Back-end service, REST API, and database for restaurant point-of-sale systems (mobile app and kiosk).
    - Modules for precise wait time estimation, order scheduling and prioritization, integration with 3rd party payment and authentication services, user-facing tools for menu and coupon management, etc.
    - Robot configuration service for storing, serving, and tracking version-specific and unit-specific parameters.
    - Databases, dashboards, and automated reporting for robot metrics and sales.

Built simulation and prediction tools used by CEO & Board of Directors for business planning.

Co-authored three patent applications for innovations in machine control and human-machine interfaces.

### Software Engineer @ Creator
Jan 2017 – Jan 2020 | San Francisco Bay Area
Integral IC on the core engineering team that launched the world's first robotic burger restaurants.

Architected and implemented a robot notification service, Apple Watch client app, and admin web interface (US Patent #11,173,606).

Designed and developed a real-time state machine visualization tool for testing and debugging robot control software.

Developed middleware integrating robots with human-machine interfaces and cloud services.

Designed and developed a testing interface to automate and streamline the process of enqueuing test orders, associating captured readings and errors, and tracking failure modes.

### Software Engineering Consultant @ Independent consulting
Jan 2016 – Jan 2017 | San Francisco

### Software Engineer @ Schneider Electric
Jan 2014 – Jan 2016 | San Francisco Bay Area

### Engineering Assistant @ McGuire Engineers, Inc.
Jan 2013 – Jan 2014 | Chicago


## Education
### Masters in Computer Engineering
Boston University

### Bachelor of Arts (B.A.) in Mathematics, French
Middlebury College

### Middlebury College


## Contact & Social
- LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/in/jamesriley101

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Source: https://flows.cv/jamesriley
JSON Resume: https://flows.cv/jamesriley/resume.json
Last updated: 2026-03-30