Head of System

As Head of System, you own how our humanoid works as a machine. You define the robot's system architecture: its kinematic and dynamic structure, where sensors sit and why, how compute and control are distributed across the body, and how mechanics, electronics, and software resolve into one coherent design. When a decision spans disciplines and nobody owns it, you do.

You have built humanoids before, more than once, and you know which problems only appear on the third robot. You are technically deep enough that our architects and roboticists want to argue with you, and experienced enough in real engineering organizations to run a team, hold a roadmap, and say no to good ideas that arrive at the wrong time.

You work directly with the founders, with the Chief AI Officer on how learned policies meet the physical platform, and with the Head of Hardware, who takes your architecture and makes it manufacturable. The Software Lead, the Systems Engineering Lead, and the Robot Architect report to you.

Key Responsibilities

• Robot system architecture. Own the physical and functional architecture of the robot: degrees of freedom, kinematic structure, mass and inertia strategy, sensor selection and placement, actuator specification, compute topology, and the reasoning behind each.

• The mechanics-to-control loop. Ensure that what is built is what the controllers assume: system identification, URDF and model fidelity, dynamic behavior, and the discipline of closing the loop between design intent and measured reality.

• Interface ownership. Own requirements, interface control, and the mass, power, thermal, and bandwidth budgets that keep the disciplines honest. Hold the contract at the seam with hardware.

• AI to platform. Work with the CAIO and AI team so that policies trained in simulation transfer to hardware: sim-to-real fidelity, latency and control-rate budgets, observation and action interfaces, and what the platform must provide for learning to work.

• Software and embedded leadership. Lead the software organization spanning embedded, motion control, perception integration, and robot infrastructure. Set standards, review practice, and establish technical decision frameworks.

• Safety architecture. Champion functional safety at the architectural level for machines that cannot rely on stopping to be safe. Our founding team helped write the emerging humanoid safety standards in ISO TC299, and you will shape how that thinking enters our platform.

• Validation of behavior. Define what "working" means for the robot as a system and own the acceptance criteria that integration executes against.

• Engineering leadership. Build and grow a team of roboticists and software engineers. Mentor strong individual contributors and give architects room to be architects.

Who We Are Looking For

• Humanoid experience, specifically. You have worked on legged humanoid robots in industry, ideally at more than one company, on platforms that were used outside the lab by people who did not build them. This is the requirement we will not compromise on.

• Robotics depth. 10+ years with a core in robotics: dynamics, control, kinematics, and mechatronic system design. You can go deep in a technical discussion with a controls engineer and be useful.

• Cross-disciplinary fluency. You are credible with mechanical engineers about structure and stiffness, with electronics engineers about sensing and compute, and with software engineers about architecture. You have made trade-offs across all three.

• Real organizational experience. You have led teams in companies with actual process and constraints, not only in research groups. You have owned roadmaps, handled prioritization under pressure, and grown engineers.

• Software leadership credibility. You have led or worked closely enough with software organizations to set direction, assess engineers, and hold quality standards. Writing production code yourself is not the expectation.

• Systems thinking. You understand how a decision at one end of the robot shows up at the other, and you are drawn to the problems that sit between disciplines rather than inside one.

Nice to Have

• Familiarity with learning-based control and what it demands of a physical platform.

• Exposure to functional safety in machinery, for example ISO 13849, IEC 61508, or the humanoid work in ISO 25785 and ISO 22440.

• The Team: Work alongside leadership with a proven track record of building unicorn-scale companies and defining global robotics standards.

• Smart Strategy: We operate as disciplined fast followers. Capital is timed to the deployment inflection point, avoiding early-mover dead ends to scale fast on proven foundations.

• Resources: We are substantially internally funded and attract top-tier investors to avoid any capital constraints for our mission.

• Historic Opportunity: Join at the dawn of a new industry comparable to the rise of the automobile. Help shape the European champion in this trillion-dollar market.