Head of Physical AI Programs

Centific; Palo Alto (CA); On-site; USD 300,000 - 360,000; Full time

Job summary

Centific is seeking a visionary Head of Physical AI Programs to lead the development and scaling of its Physical AI practice in the Bay Area. You will define strategy, build operational capabilities, and deliver large-scale robotics and AI programs for top labs and enterprise customers.

The role requires deep expertise in robotics, embodied AI, simulation, and reinforcement learning, with a track record of managing executive relationships and distributed teams.

Qualifications

• 12+ years leading large-scale robotics/AI programs.
• Proven ability to scale new business units.
• Deep knowledge of Physical AI, robotics, simulation, and AI training.
• Experience managing executive customer relationships.
• Strong global team leadership.
• Translate emerging technologies into commercial offerings.

Responsibilities

• Define strategy and growth for Centific's Physical AI practice.
• Lead end-to-end delivery of large-scale Physical AI programs.
• Establish Centers of Excellence in robotics, autonomous systems, embodied AI.
• Build partnerships with robotics companies, labs, universities.
• Represent Centific at events and executive forums.
• Drive delivery frameworks, governance, and operational excellence.

Skills

Robotics leadership

Executive program management

Global team leadership

Strategic partnerships

Commercialization of tech

Tools

Robotics platforms

Job description

About Centific

Centific is a frontier AI data foundry that curates diverse, high-quality data, using our purpose-built technology platforms to empower the Magnificent Seven and our enterprise clients with safe, scalable AI deployment. Our team includes more than 150 PhDs and data scientists, along with more than 4,000 AI practitioners and engineers. We harness the power of an integrated solution ecosystem—comprising industry-leading partnerships and 1.8 million vertical domain experts in more than 230 markets—to create contextual, multilingual, pre-trained datasets; fine-tuned, industry-specific LLMs; and RAG pipelines supported by vector databases. Our zero-distance innovation™ solutions for GenAI can reduce GenAI costs by up to 80% and bring solutions to market 50% faster. Our mission is to bridge the gap between AI creators and industry leaders by bringing best practices in GenAI to unicorn innovators and enterprise customers. We aim to help these organizations unlock significant business value by deploying GenAI at scale, helping to ensure they stay at the forefront of technological advancement and maintain a competitive edge in their respective markets.

About Job Head of Physical AI Programs

Location Bay Area, California or Redmond, Washington

About Centific

Centific is a leading AI Data and Engineering company helping the world’s largest AI innovators build, train, validate, and deploy next-generation AI systems. Through our global platform, expert workforce, and AI Data Foundry (AIDF), we support the development of foundation models, agentic AI systems, multimodal AI, and Physical AI solutions. As Physical AI becomes the next frontier of artificial intelligence, Centific is investing in building the industry’s most comprehensive platform and services ecosystem for robotics, embodied AI, autonomous systems, simulation, reinforcement learning, synthetic data, and real-world data operations.

Position Summary

We are seeking a visionary and execution-oriented Head of Physical AI Programs to lead the development and scaling of Centific’s Physical AI practice. This executive will be responsible for defining strategy, building operational capabilities, establishing strategic partnerships, and delivering large-scale Physical AI programs for leading AI labs, robotics companies, autonomous systems providers, and enterprise customers. The ideal candidate combines deep expertise in robotics, embodied AI, autonomous systems, simulation, reinforcement learning, and large-scale program execution with a strong understanding of how AI data, human intelligence, and operational excellence come together to accelerate Physical AI development. This role will serve as the executive leader responsible for transforming Physical AI from an emerging capability into a strategic growth engine for Centific.

Key Responsibilities

• Physical AI Strategy & Practice Leadership
• Define and execute Centific’s Physical AI vision, roadmap, and growth strategy.
• Build a differentiated Physical AI services and platform offering spanning data, simulation, training, validation, benchmarking, and reinforcement learning.
• Establish Centers of Excellence focused on robotics, autonomous systems, humanoids, industrial automation, warehouse robotics, and embodied AI.
• Identify emerging market opportunities and translate them into scalable business offerings.
• Program Leadership & Delivery
• Lead strategic customer engagements from concept through execution.
• Own end-to-end delivery of complex Physical AI programs involving robotics data collection, simulation, teleoperations, RLHF, RLAIF, benchmarking, and validation.
• Establish delivery frameworks, operating models, quality standards, and program governance mechanisms.
• Drive operational excellence across globally distributed teams.
• Ecosystem & Partnerships
• Develop strategic relationships with robotics companies, AI labs, autonomous systems providers, universities, and technology partners.
• Collaborate with industry leaders across robotics, simulation, synthetic data, and AI infrastructure ecosystems.
• Represent Centific at industry events, conferences, customer briefings, and executive forums.
• Product & Platform Innovation
• Partner with Product, Engineering, and Research teams to shape the roadmap for Physical AI capabilities within AIDF.
• Drive innovation across: Robotics Data Collection Simulation Data Generation Human-in-the-Loop Operations Reinforcement Learning Physical AI Benchmarking Synthetic Data Pipelines Safety & Validation Frameworks Embodied Agent Evaluation
• Business Development & Growth
• Support strategic pursuits and executive-level customer engagements.
• Develop solution frameworks and go-to-market strategies for Physical AI opportunities.
• Build a multi-year pipeline across robotics, manufacturing, logistics, mobility, healthcare, defense, and industrial automation sectors.
• Contribute to revenue growth and strategic account expansion.
• Team Building
• Recruit and develop a world‑class Physical AI organization.
• Build multidisciplinary teams spanning robotics, simulation, AI data operations, program management, research, and engineering.
• Foster a culture of innovation, operational rigor, and customer obsession.

Required Qualifications

• 12+ years of experience leading large-scale programs within robotics, autonomous systems, AI, industrial automation, or related fields.
• Proven track record building and scaling new business units, programs, or operational organizations.
• Deep understanding of Physical AI, robotics, embodied intelligence, simulation environments, and AI training ecosystems.
• Experience managing executive customer relationships and strategic programs.
• Strong operational leadership experience with globally distributed teams.
• Demonstrated ability to translate emerging technologies into commercial offerings.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience at or working closely with organizations such as: NVIDIA Amazon Robotics Tesla Scale AI Waymo Figure AI Agility Robotics Boston Dynamics Aurora Innovation
• Experience with: Robotics operations Humanoid robotics Autonomous systems Reinforcement learning Digital twins and simulation Teleoperations Human-in-the-loop workflows AI data operations Physical AI safety and validation

Location

Bay Area strongly preferred.

Salary

$300k + OTE

Equal Opportunity

Centific is an equal-opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, national origin, ancestry, citizenship status, age, mental or physical disability, medical condition, sex (including pregnancy), gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, marital status, familial status, veteran status, or any other characteristic protected by applicable law. We consider qualified applicants regardless of criminal histories, consistent with legal requirements.

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