San Francisco Startup Pays $20 an Hour to Walk Robot Dogs

Bay Area startup Dimensional recently turned heads on local job boards after posting a listing for dogwalkers offering $20 an hour with zero prior experience required. The catch? The “dogs” are actually four-legged, headless robotic canines!

While the gig spares walkers from scooping poop or managing lawn disputes, handling a mechanical pup comes with its own set of stubborn quirks. The robots can glitch, get confused in city crowds, freeze in the middle of crosswalks, or completely shut down if their hardware overheats. Whenever that happens, the human handler is tasked with lugging the 33-pound metal companion back home.

The unusual walking duties serve a genuine technological purpose: Dimensional is developing an open-source robotic operating system designed to master autonomous navigation through bustling urban settings. Human walkers steer and guide the machines through city sidewalks, establishing “ground truth” route data while the robot’s onboard cameras and sensor suite record the environment. Though the initial round of applications has closed, the company hinted that more robot-walking shifts may open up as their city trials expand.

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