Head of Hardware

About Our TeamChef Robotics is on a mission to accelerate the advent of intelligent machines in the physical world. As the rise of LLMs like ChatGPT has shown, AI has the potential to drive immense change. However, we believe AI’s biggest impact will be in the physical world, given industries like manufacturing, food, and transportation represent 90% of global GDP. We're starting with food, with a goal to put an intelligent robot in every commercial kitchen in the world. We have signed multiple multi-year contracts with various large food companies and we are growing fast. We're backed by investors like Kleiner Perkins, Construct, Bloomberg BETA and Promus Ventures. We have a great team, where you will be surrounded by talented engineers and tech leaders from companies like Cruise, Zoox, Google, Verb Surgical, Tesla, Nuro, Vicarious, Amazon Robotics, Strateos, Built Robotics, Facebook, Plenty, Yelp, and Microsoft.In this role, you'll be a partner to lead the hardware engineering team (and, depending on the candidate, perhaps also the manufacturing/supply chain team). Our next goal is to build and scale to 1,000 robot systems worldwide.What you'll do Oversee Chef's hardware engineering org Help execute as a player coachHelp expand the set of ingredients that Chef can manipulate (e.g., sticky cheese, fruit, piece picking, etc.) Help design and build Chef's next-gen systemHelp improve reliability / MTBF for Chef's current systems in the field Help reduce BOM Help set technical direction for HW team (Depending on the candidate) Oversee Chef's manufacturing and supply chain team and help scale to 250, 500, and then 1000 robots in production. Help be on Chef's leadership team. Represent HW team and also help Chef make the right company-level decisions. Help hire and build a team as needed Help fundraise Requirements Masters or Ph.D. in mechanical engineering, electrical engineering, or physics Has shipped 3 (at least 2) products to marketHas seen at least one product scale to tens of thousands of users/customersHas lead manufacturing (or managed someone who lead manufacturing) Has lead supply chain and procurement (or managed someone who lead supply chain and procurement) Has 10 years of production engineering experience as an IC, tech lead, or manager  Has managed and lead teams in: Manufacturing, Mechanical Engineering, Electrical Engineering, FirmwareHas worked with Perception / computer vision, Machine learning, Robotics motion planning and control Has been a manager of a team of engineers and a manager of managers (two layers) Has been part of at least one startup Has scaled an engineering team from 5 people to 15 to 45 people Understand the business logic and the business Can sell and convince top A-level hires to join the companyCan represent the company and sell the company to investors for prospective investorsCan be onsite in our SF office Equal Opportunity EmployerWe are an equal opportunity employer and value diversity at our company. We do not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, color, sex, gender identity and expression, sexual orientation, national origin, ancestry, citizen status, uniform service member and veteran status, marital status, age, pregnancy status, protected medical condition, genetic information, disability, or any other protected status. Multiple studies have found that a higher percentage of women and BIPOC candidates won't apply if they don't meet every listed qualification. Chef values candidates of all backgrounds. If you find yourself excited by our mission but you don't check every box in the description, we encourage you to apply anyway!We may use artificial intelligence (AI) tools to support parts of the hiring process, such as reviewing applications, analyzing resumes, or assessing responses. These tools assist our recruitment team but do not replace human judgment. Final hiring decisions are ultimately made by humans. If you would like more information about how your data is processed, please contact us.

Salary : $145,500 - $192,000