JOB SUMMARYApptronik's Production Engineering team owns the engineering last mile - turning humanoid subsystems into a fully functioning, field-ready system and commissioning it on site under a Factory Acceptance Test (FAT). We are seeking a Manager to build and lead this new organization: a hands-on technical leader who sets the bar for deployment, integration, and reliability while growing and directing a cross-disciplinary team of software support, site-reliability, and hardware-configuration engineers. Reporting to the head of Infrastructure Software and working closely with the org's Architect, you will own the delivery of robots to Robot Park and customer sites - beginning with Apptronik's first external deployments - and be the technical and operational anchor for the team as it scales.
ESSENTIAL DUTIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES- Team Leadership: Build, lead, and grow the Production Engineering team - software support, site-reliability, and hardware-configuration engineers - setting priorities, mentoring, and owning execution and quality.
- Last-Mile Ownership: Own the engineering last mile end to end - integrating subsystems into a working humanoid and driving it to acceptance under Factory Acceptance Test (FAT) at Robot Park and customer sites.
- Deployment Delivery: Champion on-site deployment, bring-up, and commissioning for internal and external customers.
- Reliability & Uptime: Establish the standards, tooling, and on-call practices that keep a growing fleet running under real-world field conditions.
- Fleet Deployment & Observability: Own centralized deployment and rollout across the fleet - canary, staged, and cascading - and the observability and monitoring that make rollout a decision, not a guess.
- Technical Direction: Set technical direction for provisioning, configuration management, networking, and fleet tooling, making architecture and prioritization calls in partnership with the org's Architect.
- Cross-Functional Partnership: Partner with Commercial, Service & Support, and the PMO to align deployment schedules, site requirements, and hand-offs.
- Process & Scale: Define lightweight, repeatable processes - sprint cadence, deployment playbooks, and FAT criteria - that scale as the team and customer base grow.
SKILLS AND REQUIREMENTS- Proven technical leadership - leading engineers and owning delivery of complex, cross-disciplinary systems.
- Deep hands-on experience deploying, integrating, and commissioning complex hardware/software systems in the field, ideally robots.
- Strong systems breadth across Linux, networking (DDS/UDP/TCP), provisioning and configuration management (Ansible), and software (C++/Python).
- Excellent communication and stakeholder management; able to represent the team to senior leadership and customers.
- Sound judgment under pressure at customer facilities against demanding timelines and SLAs.
- Willingness to travel to deployment sites, up to 25% during active deployments.
- Formal people-management experience - hiring, developing, and directing a team.
Bonus Qualifications:- Direct humanoid, manipulation, or teleoperation domain experience.
- Experience standing up a new team or function from scratch.
- Experience with ROS 2, containerization/CI-CD, and fleet-management tooling.
- ML / MLOps in the field - model fine-tuning, post-training pipelines, or dispatching training jobs (VLA / embodied-AI workflows).
- Warehouse and industrial systems integration (WMS / WES / MES / WCS).
- Cloud infrastructure and fleet backend services.
- Deep back-end experience - TypeScript and Kubernetes.
- Deep front-end experience - React, CSS, and interface design.
EDUCATION and/or EXPERIENCE- Bachelor's or Master's degree in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, Robotics, or equivalent experience.
- 8+ years of software / robotics engineering experience, OR 4+ years of direct humanoid, manipulation, or teleoperation domain experience, including time in a lead or ownership role.
- Demonstrated experience owning on-site deployment and commissioning of complex systems.
- At least 2 years formal managerial experience leading or mentoring engineers and driving cross-team execution.
PHYSICAL REQUIREMENTS- Prolonged periods of sitting at a desk and working on a computer
- Must be able to lift 15 pounds at times
- Vision to read printed materials and a computer screen
- Hearing and speech to communicate
*This is a direct hire. Please, no outside Agency solicitations.
