Head of Engineering

Head of Software Engineering

AI, Robotics & Distributed Systems | Up to $340,000 Base + Equity

Brooklyn, New York | 5 Days Onsite | Full-Time

Help build the software infrastructure powering the next generation of autonomous scientific discovery. We're partnering with a well-funded, early-stage AI and robotics company that has raised approximately $55 million in seed funding to transform how scientific research is conducted.

The company is building autonomous laboratories where AI agents, robotics, scientific instrumentation and distributed software systems work together to design, execute and analyse experiments.

They're looking for a Head of Software Engineering who can take ownership of the software architecture, build and scale an exceptional engineering team, and remain deeply involved in writing production code.

This is a hands-on technical leadership role, not a purely managerial position.

The Opportunity

You'll own the engineering foundations behind a platform connecting intelligent software with real-world scientific equipment.

The challenge combines distributed backend systems, AI-driven workflows, hardware integration and the reliability requirements of physical automation.

You'll be responsible for:

• Hands-on engineering: Design, architect and write production-quality Python and/or Go, tackling complex backend and distributed-systems challenges yourself.
• Technical architecture: Build reliable, fault-tolerant services capable of coordinating AI agents, laboratory hardware and asynchronous workflows.
• Team building: Personally hire, develop and scale a high-performing software engineering team, establishing the foundations for continued growth.
• Engineering leadership: Set technical direction, make architectural decisions, establish engineering standards and maintain a high bar for execution.
• Cross-functional delivery: Work closely with AI researchers, robotics engineers and scientific teams to translate ambitious research objectives into robust production systems.
• Ownership: Operate as a genuine player-coach, combining strategic technical leadership with meaningful day-to-day engineering contributions.

What We're Looking For

We're particularly interested in engineers who have progressed from strong individual contributors into technical leadership roles without losing their hands-on capabilities.

Essential requirements:

• Approximately 8–15+ years of software engineering experience, with a strong backend and systems engineering foundation.
• Expert-level Python and/or Go, including recent, substantial hands-on production development.
• Demonstrable experience designing and building complex distributed systems, including fault tolerance, concurrency, scalability and production reliability.
• Proven experience personally hiring and scaling an engineering team from an early-stage environment (ideally starting with fewer than 15 engineers) within the last five years.
• Previous technical leadership experience in a startup or high-growth engineering environment.
• Ability to operate across both architecture and implementation, with a willingness to write code regularly.
• Comfortable working onsite in Brooklyn five days per week.

Particularly interesting backgrounds:

• Founding Engineers who progressed into Head of Engineering, VP Engineering or CTO positions.
• Technical founders who have personally built both software platforms and engineering teams.
• Engineering leaders from infrastructure-heavy startups working on complex, high-reliability systems.

Bonus Points

• AI agents, orchestration frameworks or autonomous systems.
• Robotics, IoT, hardware integration or industrial automation.
• Distributed workflow engines, event-driven architectures or edge-to-cloud systems.
• Scientific computing, laboratory automation or research infrastructure.
• Building complex software products from zero to production in resource-constrained startup environments.

Direct robotics or scientific research experience is not essential. Exceptional distributed-systems engineers with strong startup leadership experience are equally interesting.

Interested? Particularly keen to hear from engineers who have personally built sophisticated distributed systems, hired and scaled engineering teams, and still love writing code.

If that sounds like you, hit apply and send your resume.

Please include brief details of a distributed system you've personally built and an engineering team you've helped hire and scale.