Director of Engineering, Physical AI

TL;DR

Director of Engineering, Physical AI (Robotics/ML): Leading the engineering organization building a production-grade Physical AI Data Engine for robotics and embodied AI, with an accent on data collection infrastructure, teleoperation systems, ML training pipelines, and evaluation frameworks. Focus on scaling multidisciplinary teams, architecting complex hardware-software systems, and solving the data bottleneck between robotics research and real-world deployment.

Location: Onsite in San Francisco, United States; travel is required

Salary: $302,400–$378,000 USD base salary, plus equity and benefits

Company

Develops reliable AI systems, high-quality data products, and full-stack technologies for leading models and enterprise and government AI applications.

What you will do

• Set the technical vision for data collection infrastructure, teleoperation systems, ML training pipelines, model evaluation, annotation tooling, and research platforms.
• Lead a multidisciplinary organization of engineering managers, software engineers, ML engineers, and research scientists.
• Design the organizational structure, talent strategy, and culture needed to hirify.global engineering rapidly while maintaining quality.
• Drive alignment across Engineering, Operations, and GTM on architecture, releases, and shared priorities.
• Partner with researchers and clients to deliver scalable, production-grade data infrastructure for complex robotics workloads.

Requirements

• Bachelor’s degree in Engineering, Robotics, Computer Science, or a related technical field.
• 8+ years of engineering experience, including 4+ years of direct people management and a track record of recruiting, mentoring, and developing technical teams.
• Experience leading complex hardware-software systems, with strong knowledge of robotics, autonomous vehicles, computer vision, or machine learning.
• Hands-on ownership of ML development lifecycle systems, including training pipelines, data flywheels, and evaluation frameworks.
• Ability to lead teams working with Python, C++, TypeScript/Node, distributed systems, AWS, Kubernetes, Temporal, and Airflow.
• Strong execution, communication, decision-making, and operational judgment in ambiguous, fast-paced environments.

Nice to have

• MS or PhD in a relevant technical field.
• Experience with teleoperation systems, robotic hardware platforms, or imitation learning.
• Background in sensor fusion, SLAM, or 3D data processing.
• Experience scaling data collection systems globally.

Culture & Benefits

• Comprehensive health, dental, and vision coverage.
• Retirement benefits, learning and development stipend, and generous PTO.
• Equity compensation may be available for eligible roles.
• Inclusive and equal opportunity workplace with reasonable accommodation support.
• Additional benefits may include a commuter stipend.