EPISODE · Apr 20, 2026 · 45 MIN
The Software Playbook for a 2,000 Robot Fleet | Cem Ersoz, Director of Robotics Software @ Simbe Robotics | Scaling Robotics Episode 8
from Scaling Robotics · host Miru
This EpisodeIn Episode 8, we speak with Cem Ersoz, Director of Robotics Software at Simbe Robotics. Simbe builds Tally, an autonomous retail robot that scans millions of shelves per week, giving retailers real-time visibility into product availability, out-of-stocks, and shelf accuracy. With thousands of Tallys deployed across major retailers in more than 10 countries, operating daily alongside untrained store employees across grocery, club, farm supply, and home improvement, Simbe runs one of the largest commercial Physical AI fleets in the world.We discuss what actually changes when your fleet crosses key thresholds. At a certain scale, you can no longer SSH into a robot to fix it, and that forces a complete rethink of how you build. We get into the difference between 95% autonomous and truly autonomous, why improving 9s of reliability is so hard, and how Simbe ships software to thousands of robots they can never directly touch.Plus, why A/B testing a robot fleet isn't like optimizing a SaaS funnel. There are things that no dashboards can capture, such as whether people actually feel comfortable around a robot moving faster through the store. We also get into what a truly representative canary rollout looks like at this scale, and what Cem learned when hardware he had trusted for years finally failed on robot number 2,000.Timestamps(0:04) Introduction (1:32) Fleet Scale and Deployment (3:57) Lessons from Operating Alongside Humans (6:56) Building Software for Thousands of Robots (10:55) Testing, Deployment, and Reliability (13:58) A/B Testing in Robotics vs. SaaS (17:06) Supporting Legacy Hardware (22:20) AI Coding Tools in Robotics (25:28) Staged Rollouts and Canary Deployments (29:30) The Hundred Megabit Cable Story (34:10) Building Workarounds into Everything (36:11) Hardest Moments in Scaling (39:49) What Makes a Great Robotics Engineer (43:21) ClosingAdditional ResourcesSimbe is hiringBrought to you by Miru, RobotOps Infra for Scaling Teams:
What this episode covers
This EpisodeIn Episode 8, we speak with Cem Ersoz, Director of Robotics Software at Simbe Robotics. Simbe builds Tally, an autonomous retail robot that scans millions of shelves per week, giving retailers real-time visibility into product availability, out-of-stocks, and shelf accuracy. With thousands of Tallys deployed across major retailers in more than 10 countries, operating daily alongside untrained store employees across grocery, club, farm supply, and home improvement, Simbe runs one of the largest commercial Physical AI fleets in the world.We discuss what actually changes when your fleet crosses key thresholds. At a certain scale, you can no longer SSH into a robot to fix it, and that forces a complete rethink of how you build. We get into the difference between 95% autonomous and truly autonomous, why improving 9s of reliability is so hard, and how Simbe ships software to thousands of robots they can never directly touch.Plus, why A/B testing a robot fleet isn't like optimizing a SaaS funnel. There are things that no dashboards can capture, such as whether people actually feel comfortable around a robot moving faster through the store. We also get into what a truly representative canary rollout looks like at this scale, and what Cem learned when hardware he had trusted for years finally failed on robot number 2,000.Timestamps(0:04) Introduction (1:32) Fleet Scale and Deployment (3:57) Lessons from Operating Alongside Humans (6:56) Building Software for Thousands of Robots (10:55) Testing, Deployment, and Reliability (13:58) A/B Testing in Robotics vs. SaaS (17:06) Supporting Legacy Hardware (22:20) AI Coding Tools in Robotics (25:28) Staged Rollouts and Canary Deployments (29:30) The Hundred Megabit Cable Story (34:10) Building Workarounds into Everything (36:11) Hardest Moments in Scaling (39:49) What Makes a Great Robotics Engineer (43:21) ClosingAdditional ResourcesSimbe is hiringBrought to you by Miru, RobotOps Infra for Scaling Teams:
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The Software Playbook for a 2,000 Robot Fleet | Cem Ersoz, Director of Robotics Software @ Simbe Robotics | Scaling Robotics Episode 8
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