LOS ANGELES – Charlie Snodgrass spends his mornings ensuring a fleet of delivery robots are ready for their routes, a job that didn’t exist just a few years ago. Formerly a gig worker delivering food around Los Angeles, Snodgrass now maintains the robots that have taken on a portion of that same operate.
At 5:45 a.m., in a warehouse in West Hollywood, Snodgrass oversees approximately 150 Serve Robotics delivery robots lined up in rows. The robots emit a high-pitched sound as they power on, punctuated by occasional beeps. Each robot is identified by a colored disc: green for fully checked and ready, orange indicating a need for technical support.
Before 7:15 a.m., Snodgrass and his team load 27 operational robots into a U-Haul truck for deployment across Los Angeles. He performs a quick check on each unit, like one named Singta. “Battery charged to at least 70%? Yes. External damage? None. Food bin clean and locked? Check. Software updates installed? All good,” he confirms, switching Singta’s cone from pink to green. The robot’s display reads, “Singta is on duty.”
Snodgrass is a “field operations executive” at Serve Robotics, a role that involves troubleshooting, maintenance, and occasional rescue missions for the autonomous delivery bots. The robots frequently encounter obstacles – potholes, inaccessible doorbells, and, at times, intentional abuse from people. Last month, a Waymo vehicle collided with a Serve Robotics delivery robot in downtown Los Angeles. Earlier this month, a robot was filmed navigating flooded streets after heavy rainfall, prompting a bystander to comment, “She’s doing her best!”
The demand for robot wranglers is growing alongside the expanding fleet of autonomous delivery robots. Ali Kashani, chief executive of Serve Robotics, which operates 2,000 robots in 20 cities, stated, “They are the kind of jobs that scale with the robots. If you build more robots, you’re going to still have people whose job is to operate the fleet.” Coco Robotics plans to increase its robot deployment to 10,000 by the end of the year. Serve Robotics recently acquired Moxi, a robot designed to assist in hospitals.
The need for human caretakers extends beyond delivery robots to autonomous cars from companies like Waymo and Zoox, legged robots, and robotic arms intended for workplaces and homes.
While the growth of these roles is apparent, companies are hesitant to disclose the ratio of human workers to robots. Amazon anticipates avoiding the hiring of 500,000 people through automation by 2033. Although, staffing platforms like Instawork are actively building a pool of “wranglers” to meet the anticipated labor demand. “It’s really impossible to roll these things out without humans,” said Instawork CEO Sumir Meghani.
Job postings for “robot technicians” increased by 75% in 2025 compared to the previous year, according to an analysis by Erik Stettler, chief economist at Toptal. However, the median salary for robotics technicians – $64,000 – is less than half the median salary for robotics engineers ($123,000). Snodgrass’ position at Serve Robotics pays between $24 and $26 per hour, equating to approximately $54,000 annually at the higher end.
Serve Robotics began operations in Los Angeles in 2019, initially as a spin-off from Uber, and went public on Nasdaq in 2024. Its robots currently deliver food for DoorDash and Uber Eats within a 2.5-mile radius.
At the West Hollywood depot, Anthony Pimentel cleans the sensors on each robot with a wet wipe, ensuring clear spatial awareness. Online forums reveal some delivery drivers are attempting to disable the robots by covering the sensors with stickers. Pimentel uses a controller resembling a video game joystick to guide each robot up a ramp into the U-Haul.
Inside the truck, Serve Robotics notifies DoorDash and Uber Eats that the robots are ready to accept orders. At 11:10 a.m., a robot named Siddhant reports being stuck at a crosswalk, unable to proceed because the pedestrian signal isn’t activating. The robots, lacking arms, require human assistance to activate the crosswalk button. Siddhant displays a message on its screen: “Push crosswalk button for me?”
Serve Robotics designs its robots to be approachable, with rounded corners, large eyes, and human names – Miranda, Jason, Capri, Tanisha – to encourage positive interactions with the public. Lauren Burke, senior vice president of operations at Serve, explained that the robots are constantly learning to navigate crowded sidewalks, describing it as “a constant evolution of being one with sharing the sidewalk.”
Pimentel frequently handles “drop-off assists,” delivering food to customers who don’t come outside to retrieve their orders. Other common tasks include freeing robots stuck on uneven pavement and righting those that have tipped over. Connectivity issues likewise require manual intervention.
Previously, robots crossing the intersection of Sunset Boulevard and La Brea Avenue were frequently being pushed over, requiring Serve to station wranglers nearby. Acceptance of the robots has increased as residents grow more accustomed to their presence. Matthew Wood, supervisor of the West Hollywood depot, noted a decrease in tampering, from one in five robots experiencing issues when he started a year ago to one in fifty currently.
Before deployment, Serve agents perform a dance with each robot, triggering a joyful alarm. This feature is exclusive to human pilots and cannot be activated by the public. While Serve has experimented with giving the robots a voice, it does not plan to produce all robots conversational.
The TikTok account Film the Robots LA, with nearly half a million followers, documents instances of robot mishaps and “peaceful vandalism,” including stickers protesting President Trump’s immigration policies. Some of these stickers are retained on the robots.
In one incident, individuals attempted to steal a 200-pound robot, loading it into a truck. Serve Robotics remotely took control of the robot, causing it to fall off the truck and land on its wheels.
As of 1 p.m., Snodgrass’ dashboard, titled “FAD” – field agent deployment – showed Pimentel had closed six tickets, including sensor cleaning, a rescue from a crack in the pavement, and several food drop-offs.
Next door to the warehouse, Juan Salinas, a former automotive mechanic, repairs a robot named Christine, addressing a suspension issue. Salinas was initially hired as a field agent, cleaning and charging robots, before being promoted to robot technician.
Snodgrass concludes his shift by plugging robots in for recharging and updating the list of available units for the evening rush. He expressed gratitude for building a “career in tech” and joked about a potential robot revolt. “I think I’ve done enough to get in their good graces,” he said. “I try to treat them nicely.”
