Robot Operations Manager

Kovari; San Francisco (CA); On-site; USD 120,000 - 180,000; Full time

Job summary

Kovari is seeking a hands-on leader to direct on-site robot-operator teams in our San Francisco operations. You will own shift planning, safety standards, and the daily rhythm of performance to meet customer needs.

This role lives in the field, balancing people, robots, and process to drive reliable operations. You’ll work closely with customers and engineering to translate field feedback into improvements, scale teams across sites, and maintain high-quality data and incident handling.

Qualifications

• Experience leading frontline or hourly teams in operations, hospitality, logistics, or similar.
• Proven track record hiring, training and retaining operators.
• Ability to run multi-site, multi-shift schedules.
• Data-focused leadership with measurable performance.
• Clear communication with customers and engineers.

Responsibilities

• Hire, train, and lead teams of on-site robot operators.
• Build shift schedules and staffing plans across sites.
• Set safety, task quality, and data quality standards and enforce them.
• Track operator and robot performance: tasks completed, uptime, throughput.
• Coach operators, run daily standups, address performance issues.
• Collaborate with customer staff to integrate robots into daily workflows.
• Capture field issues and route them to engineering.

Skills

Operations leadership

Hiring & training

Shift scheduling

Data-driven decision making

Customer communication

Robotics exposure (bonus)

Job description

About Kovari

Kovari develops frontier technology to transform physical businesses. We partner with established operators to change how they run, and we build and operate businesses of our own through our subsidiaries.

We are a small team of builders, operators, and researchers. We deploy on site, alongside the businesses we serve, and iterate in the field. We have raised over $6M from leading investors.

We are based in San Francisco and work in person.

The Role

You will lead the on-site operators who run our robots every day. You own the team, the shifts, and the results: robots working safely, consistently, and at the pace our customers need. Your operators are also the front line of our data flywheel, so how well they work shapes how fast our robots improve.

What You’ll Do

• Hire, train, and lead teams of on-site robot operators
• Build shift schedules and staffing plans across sites
• Set standards for safety, task quality, and data quality, and hold the team to them
• Track operator and robot performance: tasks completed, interventions, uptime, throughput
• Coach operators, run daily standups, and handle performance issues directly
• Work with customer staff to fit robots into their daily workflows
• Capture field issues and operator feedback and route them to engineering
• Write and improve playbooks for operating, escalating, and handling incidents

What You Bring

• Experience managing frontline or hourly teams in operations, hospitality, logistics, or similar
• Track record of hiring, training, and retaining strong operators
• Comfort running multi-shift, multi-site schedules
• Data-driven: you run the team on metrics, not gut feel
• Calm under pressure and clear with both customers and engineers
• Comfort with technology; robotics experience is a bonus, not a requirement
• Willingness to be on site and step in when needed
• Bias toward action: solve today’s problem, then fix the system behind it

Values

• Pace of learning trumps everything.
• Relentless refinement of our craft.
• Low ego, high ownership.
• All-in on the mission. We work in person, and this isn’t a 9-to-5.