Applications Engineering Manager (West Coast)

Standard Bots; Northern (KY); Hybrid; USD 140,000 - 180,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Employee stock options

Paid time off

Medical insurance

Dental insurance

Vision insurance

Life insurance

Disability insurance

401(k)

Job summary

Standard Bots is seeking an Applications Engineering Manager for the West Coast, a hands-on leader who can coach a team while staying connected to the factory floor. You'll manage a distributed team of Applications Engineers across the territory, own capacity planning, and serve as the senior technical escalation point for complex integrations, with up to 25% domestic travel.

We value a leader who combines practical engineering with people leadership, and who can drive standardization, customer

Qualifications

• The same trifecta as our Applications Engineers -- you're genuinely fluent across mechanical, electrical, and software: PLC programming and ladder logic, pneumatics, DC power systems, robot programming, Python scripting, CAD.
• 5+ years of hands-on applications engineering, systems integration, or automation engineering experience -- you've done the field work and done it well.
• 2+ years of people management or team lead experience -- you've led engineers, given hard feedback, and helped someone grow.
• Strong customer-facing presence -- you can manage a difficult customer conversation, set expectations clearly, and represent Standard Bots credibly at a senior level.

Responsibilities

• Team Leadership & Development: coach a team across territory, manage capacity, and set high standards.
• Territory & Customer Ownership: own applications engineering for the territory from pre-sales to post-install success.
• Hands-On Technical Work: stay hands-on with design, integrations, and complex deployments.
• Standards & Continuous Improvement: define playbooks, templates, and training for repeatable deployments.

Skills

PLC programming and ladder logic

Pneumatics

DC power systems

Robot programming

Python scripting

CAD

Education

Bachelor's degree in Mechanical, Electrical, Mechatronics, or related engineering

Job description

Propel human productivity through the world’s most accessible robots.

People don't work at Standard Bots to make robots. They work here to make tomorrow easier. It’s fascinating, rewarding, and most of all, incredibly difficult to do. That’s why we’re searching for people who are up for the challenge. Who are optimistic about the future. Who are hell-bent on accelerating human progress through the integration of hardware, software, firmware, and electronics. If you’re as motivated by the possibilities as we are, join us.

Our teammates have joined us from pioneering companies:

Applications Engineering Manager (West Coast)

Location

US-West Coast (remote)

Employment Type

Full time

Location Type

Remote

Department

Applications Engineering

Compensation

• $140K – $180K Offers Equity

About Standard Bots

Standard Bots is building the next generation of industrial robots -- hardware that's powerful, affordable, and designed to scale. We're the largest U.S. industrial robotics company by robots shipped, and our robots are showing up on factory floors everywhere from independent machine shops to NASA and Lockheed Martin. Someone has to make sure those robots actually work -- and someone has to build the team that makes that happen at scale. That's this role.

Note: This position is technically remote, but is territory based and requires you to live on the West Coast. This role also requires up to 25% domestic travel. You're still in the field -- just not living out of a suitcase 2-3 days a week.

Also note: Like every Applications Engineer at Standard Bots, this is not a software engineering role. You are a hands-on industrial automation engineer who also happens to lead people. If you've never commissioned a robotic cell, this isn't the right seat.

The Role

The Applications Engineering Manager is a player-coach. You still know your way around a factory floor -- fixtures, I/O, ladder logic, robot programming, all the things -- and you use that expertise every day, both to stay sharp and to earn the respect of the team you're leading.

You'll manage a team of Applications Engineers across your territory, owning their development, their workload, and the quality of every customer engagement they touch. You'll be the escalation point when installs get complicated, the person who jumps on a plane when a customer situation needs senior eyes, and the one who sets the standard for what great applications engineering looks like at Standard Bots.

This is still a hands-on role. You're not managing from a desk. You're leading from the front.

You'll report directly to the VP of Applications Engineering.

What You'll Do

Team Leadership & Development

• Manage and develop a team of Applications Engineers across your territory -- setting expectations, coaching on technical and customer-facing skills, and building a team that executes at a high level
• Own capacity planning and workload distribution across your team -- making sure the right engineer is on the right job and nobody is drowning
• Be the technical and cultural standard-setter for your team; the bar you hold yourself to is the bar your team rises to
• Conduct regular 1:1s, performance conversations, and development planning -- you invest in your people's growth, not just their output

Territory & Customer Ownership

• Own the applications engineering function for your territory -- from pre-sales POC support through post-install customer success
• Serve as the senior technical escalation point for complex integrations, difficult customer situations, or installs that aren't going as planned
• Partner closely with your Regional Sales Manager on territory priorities, pipeline, and customer strategy -- you're the technical counterpart to their commercial leadership
• Maintain strong relationships with key customer accounts in your territory; they should know you by name and trust your judgment

Hands-On Technical Work

• Stay sharp and stay in it -- you're still designing solutions, reviewing integrations, commissioning cells, and supporting installs when the situation calls for it
• Lead or co-lead technically complex or strategically important customer engagements yourself
• Review and sign off on solution designs, POCs, and integration plans produced by your team
• Travel to customer sites as needed -- up to 25% domestically -- for escalations, key installs, and customer relationship moments

Standards & Continuous Improvement

• Define and enforce the standard for how applications engineering work gets done in your territory -- documentation, handoffs, commissioning checklists, customer training quality
• Feed territory-level learnings back to the broader applications engineering organization and to product and engineering teams
• Help build the playbooks, templates, and training materials that make every AE on your team better and every deployment more repeatable

What We're Looking For

• The same trifecta as our Applications Engineers -- you're genuinely fluent across mechanical, electrical, and software: PLC programming and ladder logic, pneumatics, DC power systems, robot programming, Python scripting, CAD
• 5+ years of hands-on applications engineering, systems integration, or automation engineering experience -- you've done the field work and done it well
• 2+ years of people management or team lead experience -- you've led engineers, given hard feedback, and helped someone grow
• Strong customer-facing presence -- you can manage a difficult customer conversation, set expectations clearly, and represent Standard Bots credibly at a senior level
• Experience managing a distributed team or territory; you know how to lead people you don't see every day
• Comfort with up to 25% domestic travel for escalations, key customer engagements, and team support
• Bachelor's degree in Mechanical, Electrical, Mechatronics, or a related engineering discipline -- or equivalent hands-on experience that tells the same story

Nice to Have

• Prior experience with collaborative robots (UR, Fanuc, KUKA, ABB, or similar)
• Background scaling an applications engineering or field engineering function -- you've helped build something, not just inherited it
• Experience with vision systems, force/torque sensing, or custom end-of-arm tooling
• Familiarity with machine tending, palletizing, welding, or assembly automation applications

Compensation and Benefits

The salary range for this role is $140,000 to $180,000, depending on experience. We are open to a variety of seniority levels for this role and will build compensation packages that are commensurate with seniority and skill level. Base salary is just one part of the overall compensation at Standard Bots. All Full-Time Employees are eligible for Employee Stock Options. We also offer a package of benefits including paid time off, medical/dental/vision insurance, life insurance, disability insurance, and 401(k) to regular full-time employees.

Compensation Range: $140K - $180K

Informed by history. Inspired by the future. Not long ago, computers were hobbyist projects. They were clunky, limited machines fiddled with only by highly-trained engineers. Then came the Apple II, a marvel of vertical integration that became the first "complete, ready-to-use computer". And in an instant, everything changed. Computing became a productivity curve bender. A tool that could be used by anybody. A joyful, interesting, and easy way to get things done. At Standard Bots, we're taking a similar approach. We're designing better hardware and easier-to-use software together to once again accelerate what humans are capable of achieving — this time, with robots. The amount of work to get there is immense, but so is the opportunity.

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Leadership team

Evan Beard Co-Founder, CEO David Golden Co-Founder Zach Tomkinson President Ashley Higgins Chief Strategy Officer Rohan Mehra VP, Operations Hunjoo Kim Head of Manufacturing Operations Lee Gross Head of Software Robert Irwin Head ofHardware Kelsee Hober Head of Product Leif Jentoft Head of AI Solutions Lars Bach Head of System Architecture

Our Investors

General Catalyst Website Amazon Industrial Fund Website Samsung Next Website Box Group Website

There’s a lot to be said about robotics.

See what customers are saying about Standard Bots. And read through what journalists, economists, and experts in the field are saying about where things stand with robotics, and where they’re heading.