Head of Engineering

One of our clients is building something genuinely different.

Rather than another warehouse robot or humanoid, they\'ve developed a completely new class of climbing robot designed to inspect, maintain and eventually repair critical infrastructure around the world.

Their robots use a proprietary magnetic locomotion system to climb steel structures that existing robots simply can\'t access, enabling contact-based inspection, maintenance and manipulation on assets including:

• Electrical transmission towers
• Bridges
• Pipelines
• Industrial tanks
• Shipbuilding infrastructure
• Large-scale industrial facilities

With trillions of dollars being invested globally into upgrading energy infrastructure, renewable power and data centre capacity, demand already exists. Customers across North America and Europe are actively helping shape the product ahead of commercial deployment.

Following successful early funding, the business is now assembling its founding engineering leadership team as it prepares for a significant Seed round later this year.

This is where you come in.

The Opportunity

This isn\'t a traditional Head of Engineering position where you\'ll inherit a large organisation.

Today the engineering team is intentionally small, highly technical and moving incredibly fast. Your role will be to introduce the structure, engineering processes and technical leadership needed to scale without losing the agility that made the company successful in the first place.

Initially this is around 80% hands-on engineering leadership and execution, 20% strategy, evolving into a broader organisational leadership role as the company grows.

You\'ll work directly alongside the founders, recruit key members of the engineering organisation and help build the foundations for what will become a much larger team over the next 12 to 24 months.

If you\'ve always wanted to help build an engineering organisation from the ground up rather than inherit one, this is exactly that opportunity.

What You\'ll Be Doing

• Lead and grow a multidisciplinary robotics engineering team.
• Introduce engineering processes, systems and operational structure that enable rapid scaling.
• Build a high-performance engineering culture centred around collaboration, ownership and technical excellence.
• Work closely with Product and R&D to balance customer needs with engineering priorities.
• Mentor engineering managers and senior individual contributors while remaining technically involved.
• Help recruit the next generation of robotics engineers as the company scales following its Seed round.
• Drive software, systems and hardware integration across a highly complex robotic platform.
• Guide technical decisions across robotics software, controls, systems engineering and product development.
• Help transition the company from advanced prototype development into commercial deployment.

What We\'re Looking For

We\'re far more interested in what you\'ve built than where you\'ve worked or studied.

You\'ll likely bring:

• Experience leading engineering teams within robotics or autonomous systems.
• A background building products in an early-stage startup environment.
• Systems engineering experience with a strong appreciation for testing, validation and reliability.
• Experience building engineering processes rather than simply operating within established ones.
• Strong people leadership, including managing managers and growing technical organisations.
• The ability to remain hands-on while leading a team.
• Technical experience with C++, ROS2 and modern robotics software development.
• Experience balancing engineering excellence with rapidly evolving product requirements.
• A pragmatic approach to using AI to improve engineering productivity.
• An interest in solving real-world physical problems rather than purely software challenges.

Bonus points if you\'ve worked on:

• Legged robotics
• Outdoor autonomous systems
• Critical infrastructure
• Industrial robotics
• Field robotics
• Safety-critical robotic systems
• Simulation and modelling

The Person

Success in this role is as much about mindset as technical ability.

You\'ll thrive if you:

• Enjoy building teams from scratch.
• Bring calm, experienced leadership to ambitious startup environments.
• Challenge ideas constructively rather than simply saying "yes".
• Are comfortable operating with ambiguity.
• Believe in creating processes that accelerate engineering rather than slow it down.
• Care more about building meaningful technology than chasing titles.
• Lead with humility and treat people well.

Put simply: they\'re looking for an exceptional engineering leader with no ego.

Why This Role?

• Join at one of the earliest leadership stages.
• Significant equity with genuine long-term upside.
• Direct influence over company direction and engineering culture.
• Opportunity to build and lead your own engineering organisation.
• Clear progression towards a VP Engineering position as the company scales.
• Solve problems that have never been solved before using robotics.
• Help deploy robots that will transform how critical infrastructure is maintained worldwide.

If you\'re excited by building world-class engineering teams, solving genuinely difficult robotics challenges and helping create technology with global impact, we\'d love to hear from you.

Apply today or reach out for a confidential conversation.