Head of AI; Robotics

This is a VC-backed robotics company building the intelligence layer for industrial machines — forklifts, cranes, excavators and other heavy equipment. The approach is pragmatic: start with remote teleoperation to generate real-world operator data at scale, then train Vision-Language-Action models toward increasing autonomy.

The teleoperation system is live and generating data. The autonomy stack is being built on top of it now. The near-term approach is imitation learning on open VLA foundations, adapted to proprietary operator data. RL follows once the baseline is proven.

This is a founding hire to lead the research efforts, working alongside the CTO and CEO — setting technical direction, owning the model stack, and hiring a team of 6–7 over the coming months.

• Own the model stack end-to-end — architecture, training, evaluation, and iteration
• Adapt and fine-tune open VLA foundations on proprietary operator data from live teleoperation
• Define and execute the near-term AI roadmap, starting with imitation learning
• Build toward RL-based methods once the imitation learning baseline is validated
• Translate research ideas into production-ready systems running on physical machines
• Set technical direction for the AI team and hire into it as the company scales
• Work directly with the CTO on strategy, roadmap, and team structure

• Strongbackgroundinrobotics,embodiedAI,orphysicalautonomy
• Hands-onRLexperience—appliedtorealsystems,notjustsimulation
• Experiencebuildingorfine-tuningfoundationmodelsatscale(ideallyVLA-stylearchitectures)
• Trackrecorddeployingmodelsinreal-world environments,notjustbenchmarks
• Comfortableoperatingasaplayer-coach:technically hands-on,capableofleadingateam
• Appliedresearchfocus—youdelivertoproduction,notpapers
• Backgroundataroboticslab,autonomousvehiclecompany,orembodiedAIteam

Shortlisted candidates will be contacted within 48 hours.