Engineering Manager (Robotics)

About Us

Human Friendly Robotics builds construction robots. Not lab demos. Not research projects. Real robots on real jobsites.

Our robot Tyler autonomously installs commercial floor tile. We already have prototypes in the field, customer traction, LOIs, and a small engineering team moving quickly.

Now we need someone who can help turn momentum into execution.

This is a player-coach role. You will lead engineering while still doing actual engineering work. You will work directly with me to turn rough goals, field feedback, and changing customer needs into:

• engineering plans
• priorities
• milestones
• accountability
• deployable systems

You’ll be working across:

• robotics
• embedded systems
• controls
• software
• hardware integration
• field deployment

This is not a pure management role.

Responsibilities

You are expected to:

• mentor engineers and interns
• drive execution
• unblock people quickly
• stay involved technically
• debug systems
• make decisions
• reduce chaos without slowing the company down

Some principles we operate by:

• Action generates information
• Fail fast to succeed quickly
• Delete. Delete. Delete.
• Don’t get stuck

We care about shipping and learning. We do not want endless docs, reports, and process theater that nobody reads.

Requirements

• 10+ years engineering experience
• 4+ years managing engineering teams
• Comfortable in high ambiguity environments
• Strong systems thinking across hardware and software
• Able to mentor younger engineers
• Comfortable making decisions with incomplete information

Bonus Points

• Robotics
• ROS / ROS2
• Embedded systems
• Industrial automation
• Motion systems / controls
• Hardware/software integration
• Startup experience

Important Considerations

A few things to be aware of:

• Direction shifts fast here.
• Customer requirements change fast.
• Priorities change once robots hit reality.
• This is not a 9-5 role.
• This is in-person. No hybrid.
• Yes, that means nights sometimes.
• Yes, it means weekends sometimes.
• The work happens when it happens.

Compensation

$110k–$130k base depending on experience and fit, plus equity.

We know experienced engineering leaders can make more elsewhere. This role is for someone optimizing for ownership, autonomy, impact, and the chance to help build something real early.

Do Not Apply If

• You want a pure management role
• You haven’t built or debugged systems yourself in years
• You want a highly structured corporate environment
• You need fully defined requirements before starting
• You prefer process over execution
• You want low intensity work
• You want endless planning meetings
• You think documentation is a substitute for progress

You May Be a Fit If

• You like turning chaos into execution
• You enjoy mentoring younger engineers
• You still like building
• You want to work on real robotics systems instead of PowerPoints
• You want your work to actually matter

Application Instructions

If you apply, include:

• the hardest engineering problem you’ve personally solved
• a time you inherited a weak or inexperienced team and improved it
• a system/project you shipped that operated in the real world, not just in simulation or controlled environments
• why this role specifically interests you

Generic applications will be ignored.

Website: https://humanfriendly.bot