Head of System (m/f/d)

Stealth Physical AI; München; Vor Ort; EUR 180.000 - 240.000; Vollzeit

Zusammenfassung

Stealth Physical AI in Munich and beyond seeks a Head of System to own the robot's architecture, from mechanics to software, and to drive cross-disciplinary execution with the founders and CTOs. You will lead a diverse team of roboticists and software engineers, define roadmaps, and ensure architectures meet safety and performance goals.

You bring 10+ years in robotics, deep technical fluency across dynamics, control and mechatronics, and a track record of leading organizations through complex,

Qualifikationen

• 10+ years with a core in robotics: dynamics, control, kinematics and mechatronic system design.
• Ability to discuss technical trade-offs across mechanical, electronic and software domains.
• Experience leading teams in organizations with process and roadmap responsibilities.

Aufgaben

• Own the robot system architecture including DOF, kinematic structure, mass/inertia strategy and sensor placement.
• Oversee the mechanics-to-control loop: model fidelity, URDF, dynamics, and closed-loop design.
• Own interface budgets for mass, power, thermal and bandwidth with hardware teams.
• Collaborate with CAIO and AI teams to enable sim-to-real learning on the platform.
• Lead software and embedded teams spanning robotics software, perception and infrastructure.
• Champion functional safety at the architectural level per applicable standards.
• Define working criteria for the robot system and ensure integration meets acceptance criteria.
• Build and grow a team of roboticists and software engineers; mentor architects.

Kenntnisse

Humanoid robotics

Robotics depth

Cross-disciplinary fluency

Engineering leadership

Systems thinking

Jobbeschreibung

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 our 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 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.

Your profile

• 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.

About us

We are building a global leader in physical AI, anchored in Europe’s strongest robotics heritage. Founded by entrepreneurs with backgrounds in scaling digital products and advanced robotics, the team is bolstered by senior leadership from top-tier AI research labs and industrial tech companies.

Driven by a mission to create versatile and trustworthy embodied AI for physical labor, We fuse deep engineering mastery in AI and mechatronics with a rapid-execution culture. We are addressing the labor shortage by closing the gap to production-grade deployment. This means building the trusted alternative: robots that are safe, secure, and engineered to automotive standards of scale and durability.

Well-capitalized and operating in stealth, we are now assembling our core team.#

Our Locations:

We have two main locations: Munich, Germany and Limassol, Cyprus. This pan-European setup represents our core ambition of building a European technology leader, gives us a great talent base and a strong corporate structure.

We are an equal opportunity employer. We celebrate diversity and are committed to creating an inclusive environment for all builders.