Founding Robotics Product & Operations Leader

AUTOPILOT; Chicago (IL); On-site; USD 100,000 - 200,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Base Salary + Annual bonus potential

Equity: Stock options

100% Employer-covered Health, Dental,

Vision Insurance

401(k) — Company-administered plan

Flexible PTO

Travel Reimbursement

Team & Culture Events

Job summary

Autopilot is seeking a Founding Robotics Product & Operations Lead in Chicago to own OEM partnerships, QA for hardware, and a scalable field operations program. You will define the service catalog, drive uptime strategies, and guide the autonomous vision roadmap, with ownership of a growing field team and cross-functional collaboration.

You’ll build a hands-on, high-ownership role in an early-stage startup, shaping processes, governance, and the economics of the platform as we scale.

Qualifications

• 5-10+ years in robotics hardware ops or related fields.
• Experience leading teams and managing vendor/OEM relationships.
• Proven QA/validation on physical systems impacting customers.
• Strong data-driven decision making and SOPs.

Responsibilities

• Define OEM and distribution strategy; evaluate hardware against customer jobs.
• Own internal QA and validation for partner hardware and embedded systems.
• Develop uptime automation for health monitoring and remote intervention.
• Productize Concierge Program and Autopilot Academy with a service catalog.
• Guide roadmap for autonomous vision and field-driven evidence.
• Lead and grow the field operations team and site presence.

Skills

Robotics ops

Field engineering

Technical program management

Technical product

QA/validation

Vendor/OEM relationships

Team leadership

Embedded stack familiarity

Data-driven decisions

Tools

QA tooling

Telemetry systems

Job description

Autopilot is seeking a Founding Robotics Product & Operations Lead in Chicago to own OEM partnerships, QA for hardware, and a scalable field operations program. You will define the service catalog, drive uptime strategies, and guide the autonomous vision roadmap, with ownership of a growing field team and cross-functional collaboration.

You’ll build a hands-on, high-ownership role in an early-stage startup, shaping processes, governance, and the economics of the platform as we scale.