Senior Business Development & Ops Lead, Robotics & Physical AI

WORLD LABS; San Francisco (CA); On-site; USD 150,000 - 220,000; Full time

Job summary

World Labs in San Francisco is seeking a Senior Business Development and Operations Lead to shape how our robotics technology is brought to market. This highly technical, hands-on role sits at the intersection of Physical AI, simulation, spatial intelligence and enterprise customers, partnering with research and engineering to understand capabilities and roadmaps.

You will own the full lifecycle of engagements—from identifying problems and shaping solutions to building commercial relationships

Qualifications

• 8+ years of experience in related industries.
• Deep experience in robotics, Physical AI, autonomous systems, simulation, or adjacent frontier tech with exposure to customers or deployments.
• Ability to engage credibly with researchers and engineers while linking tech to market opportunities.
• Understanding of multiple robotics generations from automation to robot foundation models and sim-to-real.
• Proven ability to close complex B2B relationships from early talks to signed agreements.

Responsibilities

• Develop a deep understanding of World Labs' robotics technology and the broader ecosystem.
• Identify customers, use cases, and problems where our tech creates differentiated value.
• Spend time with customers to understand workflows and unmet needs, translating them back to research and engineering.
• Shape and execute early customer engagements, pilots, and partnerships with research and product teams.
• Own strategic opportunities end-to-end: prospecting, discovery, technical evaluation, negotiations and close.
• Build the operational foundation for the commercial function: pipelines, processes, delivery tracking.

Skills

Business development

Strategic partnerships

Enterprise sales

Technical fluency

Job description

About World Labs

World Labs is a frontier AI research and product company advancing spatial intelligence, the next frontier beyond large language models. Co-founded by Dr. Fei-Fei Li, Justin Johnson and Ben Mildenhall, the company is pioneering world models that perceive, generate, reason, and interact with virtual and physical worlds.

The company’s flagship product, Marble, transforms text, images, and video into fully navigable 3D worlds, unlocking applications across gaming, film, architecture, robotics, and immersive digital experiences. Backed by leading investors and with over $1B raised, World Labs is assembling a world-class team at the intersection of AI research and real-world deployment.

Role Overview

We are looking for a Senior Business Development and Operations Lead to help shape how World Labs brings its robotics technology to market.

This is a highly technical, hands-on business development role at the intersection of Physical AI, simulation, spatial intelligence and enterprise customers. You will be part of our world-class teams partnering closely with research and engineering groups to understand what our technology can do today, where it is heading, and where it can create meaningful value for robotics teams in the real world.

You will own the full lifecycle of strategic and operational customer engagements: from identifying the right problems and shaping the solution to building the commercial relationship and closing the deal.

What You Will Do

Market + Technical Understanding

• Develop a deep understanding of our robotics technology, its capabilities and limitations, and how the broader robotics and Physical AI ecosystem is evolving.

• Identify the customers, use cases, and problems where our technology can create differentiated value, and develop a strong point of view on where the market is heading.

Customer Discovery + Feedback Loop

• Spend meaningful time with customers to understand their workflows, technical constraints, deployment environments, and unmet needs firsthand.

• Build a tight feedback loop between customers and the team: translate problems back to research and engineering, synthesize patterns, and help distinguish scalable product opportunities from one-off customization.

Commercialization + Closing

• Shape and execute early customer engagements, pilots, and partnerships in close collaboration with research, engineering, and product teams.

• Own strategic opportunities end to end: from prospecting and discovery through technical evaluation, commercial structure, negotiation, contracting, and close.

Operating + Building the Function

• Build the operational foundation for an early commercial function: maintain customer and opportunity pipelines, establish lightweight processes, drive follow-through, unblock dependencies, and make sure commitments get delivered.

What We Are Looking For

• 8+ years of experience in related industries.

• Deep experience in robotics, Physical AI, autonomous systems, simulation, or an adjacent frontier technology, with firsthand exposure to customers, products, or deployments.

• Technical fluency to engage credibly with researchers and engineers, with strong curiosity to understand how the technology works and draw connections between technical capabilities and market opportunities.

• Strong understanding of the different generations of robotics technology - from traditional automation, through the computer-vision-driven wave of robotics, to today’s frontier in imitation learning, reinforcement learning, robot foundation models, and sim-to-real.

• Demonstrated ability to develop and close complex B2B relationships, from ambiguous early conversations through signed agreements.

• Strong market and adoption judgment: you understand where new robotics capabilities will find pull first, which customers and use cases to prioritize, and how to sequence entry across markets. You can reason across environments including logistics and warehousing, industrial and scientific labs, electronics manufacturing, automotive, defense, and emerging consumer/home applications.

• Ability to turn technical capability into repeatable commercial value: identify the right wedge, business model, pricing, and channel strategy, and build a path from demo → paid PoC → production deployment while avoiding bespoke work that does not scale.

• Comfortable quantifying and defending commercial decisions: you can build a credible pipeline forecast, price a pilot, or model a deal structure with real numbers behind it.

• Builder mentality. You thrive in the ambiguity of early commercialization, creating the processes, tools, and operating cadence needed while figure out what works.

• Experience being an early or founding commercial hire inside a highly technical organization: you know how to earn credibility with researchers and engineers, not just with enterprise buyers.

• Low ego and highly collaborative. You seek the best ideas regardless of where they come from, build closely with the team, and do what is needed to deliver results.

How You Operate

• Pursuit of Greatness: You have a high bar for the work and the ambition to help build a category-defining business. You are not satisfied with the obvious answer, are willing to take bold swings, and go beyond what is required to create an exceptional outcome.

• Intellectual Honesty: You are deeply curious about customers, technology, and the market. You seek what is true rather than what validates an existing thesis, listen closely to users, and are willing to change your point of view when the evidence changes.

• Deliver Results: You own outcomes end to end. You turn conversations into actions, close loops, unblock yourself and others, and get things done—even when the path, process, or ownership is not perfectly defined.

• Build Together: You work side by side with research, engineering, product, and operations. You communicate constructively, seek the best idea rather than your idea, and can disagree, commit, and move forward as one team.

We're hiring the brightest minds from around the globe to bring diverse perspectives to our cutting-edge work. If you're ready to work on technology that will reshape how machines perceive and interact with the world, World Labs is your launchpad.

Join us, and let's make history together.

Equal Employment Opportunity

World Labs is an equal opportunity employer. We do not discriminate on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, age, disability, genetic information, veteran status, or any other characteristic protected under applicable law. We welcome all qualified applicants and are committed to providing reasonable accommodations throughout the hiring process upon request.