1 day ago
Responsibilities
- Lead technical field discovery and assess automation readiness across machine types, workflows, and ancillary equipment.
- Evaluate retrofit kits, OEM-native systems, teleoperation, and supervised autonomy approaches, and test key assumptions on real machines.
- Define the reference architecture spanning machine interfaces, sensing and compute, autonomy software, remote supervision, and data and test infrastructure.
- Make build-versus-buy-versus-license decisions, select suppliers, and set retrofit cost, installation, and serviceability targets.
- Own the safety case and path to relevant standards, including ISO 17757, ISO 19014, ISO 13849, and ISO 21815.
- Hire and lead the engineering team across integration and hardware, autonomy software, safety, and field operations.
- Own the technical roadmap, budget, delivery, stage gates, and readiness metrics from drive-by-wire prototype through supervised live-site pilots.
- Deploy the same autonomy stack on machines from a second manufacturer and serve as the technical counterpart to partner engineering teams.
Requirements
- 8+ years building robotics or autonomous systems, including 3+ years leading engineering teams.
- Experience taking autonomy from prototype to field deployment on real machines outside a lab or simulator.
- Deep expertise in at least one of perception, localization, motion planning, or controls, with working fluency across the full stack and hardware.
- Hands-on vehicle and machine integration experience, including drive-by-wire, CAN/J1939, electro-hydraulic controls, and ruggedized sensing and compute.
- Track record of hiring strong engineers and building teams, ideally including previous shipping collaborators.
- Experience with build-versus-buy decisions, suppliers, contractors, and technical budgets.
- Working knowledge of functional safety for autonomous machines and safety-case development.
- Ability to communicate technical trade-offs and risks to executives and partner engineering teams.
- Preferred experience includes off-road, field, or industrial applications; machine learning for manipulation or task learning; multi-brand or multi-vintage autonomy integration; teleoperation or remote supervision; fleet orchestration; equipment OEM or industrial partnerships; and founding or early-stage startup experience.
Benefits
- Location is Los Angeles or the San Francisco Bay Area.
- Work is on-site with a co-located engineering team.
- Requires 25–50% travel to job sites, partner facilities, and test grounds.
Tech Stack
Robot Framework
Categories
Robotics
About UP.Labs
UP.Labs is a venture studio within the UP.Partners ecosystem that co-creates startups with large enterprises, especially in transportation, mobility, and applied AI. It identifies corporate pain points, validates concepts, and builds software and hardware MVPs that are spun out as independent companies, often alongside strategic partners. The privately held firm is headquartered in Santa Monica, California and pairs venture-building teams with engineers to deliver operationally grounded products.