Founding Technical Co-Founder (Robotics / Mechatronics)

We're looking for a leader in robotics engineering to become the technical co-founder of an award-winning industrial automation startup tackling a dirty, dangerous manufacturing process in an industry facing severe labor shortages.

You'll work directly with the Founder & CEO to take a commercially-validated robotics platform from bench-tested subsystems to an integrated commercial prototype.

This is a hands-on leadership role for someone who wants to architect, build, and ultimately lead the engineering organization from the ground up.

This is an opportunity to join an industry-incubated startup with an active paid pilot, patent-protected technology, and meaningful customer validation . If successful, you'll partner with the Founder & CEO and have broad autonomy to define the technical foundation of a venture-scale robotics company from its earliest stages.

What You'll Do

• Own technical execution — strategy, architecture, and delivery — from concept through customer deployment.
• Design, prototype, integrate, and validate complex electromechanical systems.
• Break difficult engineering challenges into rapid, measurable experiments.
• Make technical decisions around architecture, integration, reliability, and manufacturability.
• Determine what should be designed internally versus purchased or outsourced.
• Recruit and lead future engineering hires as the company grows.
• Work directly with customers during product development and field testing.
• Help shape the company's long-term technical vision.

Who You Are

• You've designed, prototyped, integrated, and delivered industrial robotics systems in real-world environments.
• You've led technical direction and are comfortable making engineering decisions under uncertainty.
• You have a strong background in mechanical design, controls, embedded systems, and robotics integration.
• You understand the difference between demonstrating feasibility and building reliable systems — and can do both.
• You can clearly communicate technical decisions, tradeoffs, and progress to customers, investors, and engineering stakeholders.
• You make progress in leaps and bounds, not incremental optimization.
• You're looking to build the technical foundation of a venture-scale robotics company solving a real industrial problem with paying customers.

A Bachelor's, Master's, or PhD in Robotics, Mechanical Engineering, Mechatronics, Electrical Engineering, or a related discipline is helpful — but building and deploying complex systems that created measurable commercial value matters much more.

What We're Looking For

We're not looking for someone to execute a specification. Your first instinct isn't "Who should solve this?" It's "I'll figure it out."

The ideal candidate naturally asks:

• What is the simplest architecture that accomplishes the objective?
• What experiment retires the greatest technical risk?
• What should we build ourselves versus buy off the shelf?
• How do we turn feasibility into reliability?
• What assumptions should we test first?

Compensation

Equity-only today — salary switches on at our next milestone. Founder-level stake with vesting. Your upside comes from our shared success building an enduring company.

If you're a founder ready to build the next generation of industrial robotics in the heartland of America, let's talk.