Vice President of Embodied AI

Apptronik; Austin (TX); On-site; USD 150,000 - 210,000; Full time

Job summary

Apptronik is seeking a vice president to lead the embodied AI organization behind Apollo. This role owns AI strategy and a large technical organization spanning real-time controls, whole-body reinforcement learning, dexterous manipulation, VLA post-training, and agentic autonomy.

This leadership position focuses on turning advanced AI stacks into a coherent system that delivers useful work for customers, bridging research with practical product deployment.

Qualifications

• Senior leadership experience across embodied AI, robotics, controls, or autonomy.
• Credibility in robot learning, manipulation, reinforcement learning, VLA models, or related research areas.
• Practical judgment for shipping physical products, not only publishing research.
• Ability to connect technical strategy with product roadmap and customer readiness.
• Experience leading large technical teams through ambiguous autonomy problems.

Responsibilities

• Define embodied AI vision and roadmap for Apollo.
• Lead strategy across learned and classical autonomy components.
• Align model architecture decisions with product needs and deployment goals.
• Guide data collection strategy for improving humanoid robot behavior.
• Lead a multi-disciplinary AI, controls, and robotics organization.

Skills

Senior leadership

Embodied AI

Robotics

Reinforcement learning

Autonomy strategy

Job description

What the role actually is

Apptronik is hiring a vice president to lead the embodied AI organization behind Apollo. The role owns AI strategy and a large technical organization spanning real-time controls, whole-body reinforcement learning, dexterous manipulation, VLA post-training, and agentic autonomy.

This is not a pure research seat. The listing frames the mandate around turning those stacks into one coherent system that performs useful work for customers.

What you would work on

• Define Apptronik's embodied AI vision and roadmap for Apollo
• Lead strategy across learned and classical autonomy components
• Align model architecture decisions with product needs and customer deployment goals
• Guide data collection strategy for improving humanoid robot behavior
• Lead a multi-disciplinary AI, controls, and robotics organization

What they are asking for

• Senior leadership experience across embodied AI, robotics, controls, or autonomy
• Credibility in robot learning, manipulation, reinforcement learning, VLA models, or related research areas
• Practical judgment for shipping physical products, not only publishing research
• Ability to connect technical strategy with product roadmap and customer readiness
• Experience leading large technical teams through ambiguous autonomy problems

Why this one is worth a look

Humanoid companies increasingly need AI leadership that can choose what becomes product, what stays research, and how the pieces fit together safely. This role is worth tracking because it owns that bridge at Apptronik rather than a narrow subsystem.