Contract engineering firms can help accelerate robot development and deployment, according to SKA Robotics. Source: Adobe Stock
Imagine you’re tasked with building a robot—an autonomous system designed for industrial precision. You’ve spent months just trying to find the requisite talent. Your mechanical engineering team was relatively easy to assemble, but when it comes to the specialized skill sets needed — reinforcement learning (RL), artificial intelligence integration, and advanced robotic perception — you’re hitting a wall.
Experts command premium salaries — sometimes up to $250,000 for lead RL roles — and your budget is quickly ballooning. Then you discover that two stealth-mode startups are planning to launch a competing product within months.
Sound familiar? This is exactly why outsourcing or partnering with specialized contract engineering firms is often the smartest move. Even the biggest names—from NASA to Apple—have historically brought in outside experts to tackle the toughest technical challenges. It’s not just a money play; it’s about speed, flexibility, and proven expertise.
As SKA Robotics founder Spencer Krause explained in blog post “Why Companies Should Contract Out Robotics Systems Development” and in a recent interview with R&D World: “Many of today’s businesses seem to hesitate when it comes to outsourcing difficult engineering tasks. They may worry that using contractors will diminish their perceived value. However, when it comes to robotics, nothing could be further from the truth.”
Krause and the team at his company offered insights on avoiding common pitfalls that in-house robotics teams often face. They also added perspective on how a contract engineering firm can help you steer clear of them.
Pitfall 1: Getting bogged down by resource constraints
Project deadlines are often a source of stress, notes SKA Robotics. Source: Adobe Stock
Building a robot isn’t cheap or quick. You need cash, time, and people—lots of ’em. Companies often think they can just hand the project to their existing team, only to realize they’re short on gear, budget, or bandwidth. Delays pile up, costs balloon, and suddenly your “simple” robotics project is draining your organization.
As a result, projects can get complicated, even for domain experts. “Meeting complex robotics deadlines is complex for me,” said Nathan George, CEO of Void Robotics, on a podcast with Krause.
“I try to solve really, really hard problems, but I can’t necessarily guarantee a deadline easily,” he added. “I have to do fixed costs to make sure it doesn’t go too much over budget.”
Outsourcing fix: Contract engineering firms come ready-made with the tools, talent, and processes you need—no scrambling to buy software licenses, no need to hunt down gear or reassign your internal teams. They move fast, which means fewer delays and smoother budgeting.
Case study example: Siemens Energy needed a custom-built robot for generator maintenance on a tight timeline. By partnering with a specialized external engineering firm, it deployed a fully operational robot within four months.
This allowed Siemens Energy to avoid disassembling large-scale generators—saving about three days of downtime for each deployment and preserving approximately $1.73 million in opportunity cost every time the robot was used.
Pitfall 2: Struggling with labor shortages
Scarce engineering talent poses challenges for both long and short projects, says SKA Robotics. Source: Adobe Stock
Finding robotics professionals is brutal right now. Even big companies can’t hire enough skilled engineers, and training your own can be a slow, risky process.
Worse yet, if it’s a one-off project, you may end up saddled with a specialized team you don’t need long-term. According to Locomation CTO Tekin Meriçli, even a $74 million funding round can feel like “peanuts” when you’re scaling an autonomous vehicle startup: you quickly learn how to stretch every dollar—and also how hard it can be to attract the right people.
In another episode, George mentioned a strategy of managing dozens of interns to address some of these gaps, though that comes with its own challenges.
“I don’t know too many companies that would trust an intern to be in charge of their sales,” noted Krause, who acknowledged that the arrangement could work. Unpaid or low-paid engineering interns can reduce labor costs, but they typically require significant training and supervision, sometimes consuming more senior staff time than they save.
Outsourcing fix: Contract engineering crews are stacked with experts who have already cut their teeth on complex robotics. You basically get a cohesive team without combing through job boards or dealing with lengthy onboarding. And when your project is finished, they’re off the payroll—no expensive severance packages or idle experts.
Case study example: In mining and construction, SKA Robotics has collaborated on projects involving vehicles with load capacities ranging from under 500 lb. (226.7 kg) to more than 3 million lb. (1.3 million kg).
In one case, the company began detailed testing on miniature, scaled-down models including a 1:12 scale version of a blast hole driller. This technique enabled precise calibration of autonomous navigation systems before deploying the technology onto full-sized machinery.
Pitfall 3: Getting stuck in approval purgatory
Bigger companies have more bureaucracy, notes Spencer Krause. Source: Sora/OpenAI
Bigger companies have bigger processes: more paperwork, more gatekeepers, more red tape. That’s fine in theory—until it grinds your robotics timeline to a halt.
Example: The headhunter Greg Toroosian (Check out Episode 149 of Krause’s podcast) highlights how internal bureaucracy can slow everything down, especially in large organizations that require multiple sign-offs just to purchase a single component or proceed to the next development phase.
Outsourcing fix: High-end contract engineering firms live and die by fast decision-making. They don’t wade through the same hierarchy you do. They can rapidly pivot, approve new parts, or add new talent on the fly, allowing your project to keep humming—even while your internal teams are still filling out forms.
Case study example: On a multi-robot solar field construction program for Sarcos Technology and Robotics Corp., external systems and perception engineers maintained requirements, developed algorithms, and managed subsystem action diagrams without being bogged down by internal sign-off delays.
Their ability to adapt quickly at each development stage helped keep the overall project on track and minimized downtime caused by bureaucratic slowdowns.
Pitfall 4: Unexpected technical difficulties
An AI-generated image depicts a potential problem of excessive solder smoke during an electronics assembly process. | Source: Sora/OpenAI
Robotics is a beast—hardware, software, and controls all need to sync perfectly. “’Unexpected technical difficulties’ can appear out of nowhere and tank your schedule,” noted Krause. A single hardware glitch can set you back months if you’re learning on the job.
Outsourcing fix: Seasoned contract engineers have seen it all before. They’ve wrangled these problems on prior gigs and can tackle them fast—often borrowing lessons from parallel industries. For instance, SKA Robotics has applied space industry approaches to solve complex construction robot challenges.
Case study example: One manufacturer of blast hole drillers needed a robust autonomous navigation solution. By partnering with a contract engineering firm that had deep experience in remote control and GPS-based autonomy, the team overcame sudden hardware integration issues and collision-avoidance complexities.
The contractor’s quick response and prior knowledge of similar problems drastically reduced delays, allowing the vehicle to drill holes and geotag them with minimal human oversight.
Pitfall 5: Lacking in-house expertise
Contract engineering firms can supplement in-house expertise. Image generated with Grok 3.
Not every company has a robotics wizard on staff, and that’s okay—until you jump headfirst into building a robot requiring specialized algorithm design or advanced controls engineering.
Outsourcing fix: Contract engineering firms bring bundled expertise—electrical, mechanical, controls, software—under one roof. Hiring them sidesteps the need to try to hire and integrate a half-dozen different specialists on your own.
Case study example: A company developing a surgical robot turned to an external team when it needed advanced collision avoidance and tool-path “snap to” features. Within a span of roughly 10 weeks, the external engineers delivered embedded software that parsed STL files, managed real-time collision mitigation, and provided a simulator for demonstration.
The firm’s prior expertise in low-level chipset coding and robotics algorithms filled critical knowledge gaps for the client—and saved it months of in-house trial and error.
Pitfall 6: Overcommitting to non-recurring needs
The Project Management Triad—also known as the Triple Constraint—is sometimes humorously summarized as, “Good, fast, or cheap: Pick two.” | Source: Sora/OpenAI
Hiring full-time for a single robotics gig can be financially counterproductive. You can end up locked into a bloated payroll long after your one-and-done project wraps.
Void Robotics’ George acknowledged that he tried to sell a general product at first but ultimately shifted to working with a specific customer in a leaner, more incremental approach.
“The cost to develop is hard, so we’re doing it pretty slowly,” he recounted.
Outsourcing fix: When you outsource, you’re paying for performance on a set timeline. Once the project is complete, so is the contract. You don’t need to justify layoffs or find busywork for newly hired specialists. It’s a clean break that keeps your budget lean and your organizational structure stable.
Case study example: An organization wanted a self-driving catamaran to autonomously collect water samples, a need that only arose for specific research periods. Instead of building a dedicated maritime robotics department, it contracted out hull design, drive systems, and autonomy integration.
After successful deployments in multiple regions, the company simply ended the contract, preventing unnecessary long-term payroll for a bespoke project.
SKA Robotics looks at the big picture
Krause noted that large enterprises sometimes worry that outsourcing “diminishes” their own internal value. But major successes, from the Apollo Lunar Lander to the iPhone, prove otherwise. The real risk is burning time, money, and morale while your team struggles to solve problems that specialists have seen and solved before.
Modern robotics requires a multidisciplinary approach—mechanical engineering, controls, algorithm design, software, and more, reiterated SKA Robotics. Even with stellar in-house teams, unforeseen snags like labor shortages, internal red tape, and specialized knowledge gaps can derail your launch. And in a world where market windows close quickly, that’s a risk few can afford.
Editor’s note: This article was syndicated from The Robot Report sibling site R&D World.
Tell Us What You Think!