Field Lead – ARIA Smarter Robot Bodies

Amododesign; Cambridge; On-site; GBP 90,000 - 130,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Free lunch every day

Pay professional institution fees

Weekly maker evenings

Job summary

Amodo Design in Cambridge is seeking a lead engineer to drive ARIA's Smarter Robot Bodies programme, partnering with academic groups and startups to turn research challenges into deliverable work plans.

You will scope engineering projects with ARIA's Creators, translate ideas into specifications, and guide colleagues to deliver impact while advising ARIA's SRB team.

Qualifications

• Track record of discovering and solving technical problems.
• Ability to engage with academic groups and startups and translate problems into plans.
• Strong communication to align diverse stakeholders.

Responsibilities

• Lead scoping of engineering projects with ARIA’s Creators (grantees).
• Translate research challenges into comprehensive work plans and specifications.
• Work with ARIA and Amodo teams to deliver projects on schedule.
• Advise SRB team members and identify acceleration opportunities.

Skills

Problem solving

Communication

Strategic thinking

Leadership

Ambiguity handling

Academic collaboration

Education

Outstanding academic background

Job description

We are pausing hiring for this role for now, but intend to reopen in the future. Please check back in a few weeks, or see ourCareers page for our other active roles.

This year, we delivered 10 projects for the ARIA Smarter Robot Bodies; next year, you’ll scope and help deliver another 10.

We’re hiring someone to lead our work with ARIA’s Smarter Robot Bodies (SRB) programme. Likely an engineer who wants to spend lots of time with academic and industrial research groups understanding their problems and turning them into actionable work plans for us to deliver. You’ll work at Amodo as part of our core team but spend a lot of time interacting with ARIA and their grantees.

You will be responsible for scoping engineering projects with ARIA’s Creators (grantees). To do this, you will:

• Meet with all of the SRB scientists and engineers


• Understand the engineering challenges in their work


• Ideate how to solve their challenges


• Turn these ideas into comprehensive engineering work plans, scopes, and specifications


• Following review with ARIA, take these engineering work plans and help your colleagues at Amodo deliver them


• Be the engineer on hand to advise Jenny, Radhika, and Paul (ARIA’s SRB team)


• Look for further opportunities to accelerate the SRB programme

Here’s a sample of what we’ve done for the Smarter Robot Bodies programme in 2025:

• Created a new electrical impedance tomography system for the University of Cambridge.


• Provided quick turnaround support for the Smarter Robot Bodies Hackathon.


• Developed a new efficient 2kV power supply with arbitrary waveform output.

This role suits someone who:

• Wants to work with some of the world’s best academic groups and startups


• Wants to work at a pace


• Loves spotting gaps in fields - you’ll be a force multiplier on the SRB programme, noticing where Amodo can accelerate the programme.


• Is excited to accelerate a field, think about metascience, and take responsibility for driving change.

I think this is one of the most exciting engineering jobs in the UK because:

• You’ll build an unrivalled network across ARIA and ARIA’s Creators


• You get to work closely with Jenny’s Smarter Robot Bodies team


• You’ll be responsible for guiding millions of pounds of engineering R&D effort per year. If done well, this could radically accelerate the SRB programme


• You get to engage on a deep technical level with world-leading research groups, and do this across >20 different technical areas.

About you

We value drive, culture fit, and a track record of exceptional achievement above all else, but the competencies, interests, and attributes below are highly desirable:

• Outstanding academic background—likely from a rigorous discipline (STEM - Engineer, Physics, Product Design, +) at a top university, with a track record that stands out.


• Track record of discovering and solving technical problems.


• Charisma and strong communication skills that let you context-switch between rallying a team, engaging with clients, and explaining complex technical concepts to non-technical stakeholders.


• Demonstrated ability to get hard things done: founded something, shipped a project that mattered, led a team, won a competition, or otherwise proved you don’t just think about impact—you create it.


• Genuine intellectual curiosity about how the world works and how to make it better. You probably follow frontier tech development, think seriously about which problems matter most, and have opinions on how to solve them.


• Comfortable operating in ambiguity—you can take an ill-defined problem, break it down, and drive it to completion without hand-holding.

• Free lunch every day


• We can pay your professional institution fees


• Weekly maker evenings (tools, budget and pizza provided)