Associate Director, Systems Engineering

About Wonder Everything’s on the menu at Wonder. Except compromise. Wonder is the mealtime platform built to feed every craving in one order. With Wonder, you can mix and match hundreds of dishes from 20+ exclusive restaurants in a single order, so everyone gets exactly what they’re craving. Enjoy everything from tacos to Thai with $0 delivery fees, plus dine-in or pick up at a Wonder location near you. Each dish is made to order on-site by our culinary team and served hot. Behind the scenes, Wonder owns and operates every step of the dining experience, from recipe development to the technology that powers our experience, allowing us to deliver quality, variety, and consistency at scale. Join us as we work to make great food more accessible. Within Wonder, the Robotics team is a core pillar of our innovation strategy. We build the automation solutions that help make Wonder’s 'no-compromise' promise possible at scale. Our mission is to use robotics to enable incredible variety and culinary authenticity. By reimagining the kitchen environment, we improve the daily experience of our team members and ensure every customer receives a perfect meal, every time. The best in the business are coming to Wonder, working every day to make us the destination for every mealtime moment. Join a team of technology, culinary, and logistics pioneers, backed by top-tier venture capitalists, and help us make great food more accessible. About The Opportunity We’re looking for an Associate Director of Systems Engineering to lead the development of our next-generation automated beverage platform. This role requires a principal architect who can bridge high-level product strategy with technical execution across the entire development lifecycle. You will have ultimate authority and accountability for the product, driving a complex, multi-disciplinary program from a blank slate to a fully realized, high-performance system. You will operate at the intersection of hardware, software, and controls to ensure we deliver a world-class solution that meets Wonder's high standards for quality and scale. The Impact You Will Make Own the Product Roadmap: Act as the ultimate accountable person for the success of the automated beverage system, defining the product requirements and driving the technical vision. Architect Complex Systems: Lead the high-level architecture across mechanical, electrical, and software domains, making the "big-picture" decisions that balance performance, reliability, and timeline. Drive 0-to-1 Development: Navigate the full product lifecycle, from initial concepts and prototyping, to a high fidelity prototype to real world pilots. Lead Cross-Functional Teams: Guide a diverse team of hardware and software engineers, fostering a culture of high performance, rapid iteration, and technical excellence. Manage Timelines & Risk: Build and maintain aggressive but achievable development timelines, proactively identifying and mitigating technical and operational risks. Cross-Departmental Collaboration: Work closely with our culinary platform team to ensure the product we build matches our culinary and business ambitions. Drive "Buy vs. Build" Strategy: Lead the evaluation and selection of key technology partners and sub-components deciding when to outsource or leverage off-the-shelf parts versus developing proprietary solutions in-house Identify, onboard, and cultivate strategic third-party vendor relationships in the beverage equipment industry, ensuring partners are deeply aligned with and invested in our product vision. What You Bring to the Table Bachelor’s degree in Mechanical, Electrical, or Mechatronics Engineering or a related technical field. Proven Leadership: 12+ years of experience in engineering, with a significant track record of leading large-scale, complex hardware/software projects from scratch ideally in the robotics or industrial automation industry. Technical Breadth: Deep expertise in systems integration, robotics, or industrial automation. You should be equally comfortable discussing controls architecture, mechanical design and software. The "Architect" Mindset: Demonstrated ability to synthesize competing requirements into a cohesive, elegant system architecture. You are comfortable with ambiguity and making difficult architectural, technical and product decisions. Execution Focus: A "builder" mentality with the grit to manage through the challenges of hardware development and the leadership to keep a large team aligned and motivated. Communication Excellence: Ability to distill complex technical concepts for executive leadership while providing granular technical guidance to individual contributors. Strategic Precision: Exceptional organizational skills and a mastery of modern project management tools (Jira, Confluence, Miro, etc.), with the ability to architect these tools for a matrixed team. Product and Business focused mindset: you have experience owning product requirements and becoming deeply embedded in business priorities and user needs. Experience and know-how in the Beverage industry building beverage products and established relationships with beverage equipment vendors is strongly preferred. This role requires a minimum of 4 days a week in the office, with additional days as needed based on project demands. This role is based in our Boston office in Charlestown, MA Base Salary Range: $229,000-$255,000 per year Wonder uses geographic-specific salary structures, which means the salary offered may vary depending on where the job is located. The final salary offer will take into account various factors, such as the candidate's skills, education, training, credentials, and experience. Benefits We offer a competitive salary package including equity and 401K. Additionally, we provide multiple medical, dental, and vision plans to meet all of our employees' needs as well as many benefits and perks that are not listed. A Final Note At Wonder, we build the best teams by hiring with an objective lens — evaluating people for their potential while championing diversity, equity, and inclusion. We do not discriminate based on race, color, religion, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, national origin, age, military service eligibility, veteran status, marital status, disability, or any other protected class. As part of our commitment to fair and compliant hiring practices, Wonder participates in the federal government's E-Verify program to confirm employment eligibility. If you need an accommodation during the interview process, please let your recruiter know. We look forward to hearing from you! We'll contact you via email or text to schedule interviews and share information about your candidacy. Wonder is the mealtime platform built to feed every craving without compromise. With options including dine-in, delivery, pickup, and meal kits, Wonder makes every mealtime effortless. Through the Wonder app, customers can combine hundreds of dishes from exclusive, chef-developed concepts in a single order so everyone gets exactly what they’re craving. Wonder’s portfolio of brands includes meal-kit pioneer Blue Apron, leading online food marketplaces Grubhub and Seamless, and Emmy®-winning media company Tastemade. Together, we're united by a single mission: to make great food more accessible. There has never been a more exciting time to join our world-class team. We’ve brought together people who are changing the way the world eats — with grit, optimism, care, and a little bit of salt, and pepper. And we're just getting started.