Senior Director, AI

Role overview A senior leadership role directing all artificial intelligence and machine learning initiatives for a commercially deployed humanoid robotics company. The position sets the long-term AI vision, leads an existing high-performing team, and partners with hardware and robot software leadership to deliver real-time, production-grade AI capabilities for robots operating in real-world environments.

Responsibilities - Define and champion the overall AI strategy and roadmap in alignment with the product vision and business goals. - Lead selection and integration of advanced machine learning models, algorithms, and deep learning techniques for embodied AI, including perception, manipulation, and natural language understanding. - Foster a culture of rigorous research, innovation, and responsible AI development, ensuring systems meet high standards for safety, privacy, and ethics. - Partner with hardware and robot software leadership to optimize the sensor suite and embedded compute for current and future model architectures. - Oversee design, development, and deployment of on-robot and cloud-based AI systems, establishing MLOps best practices for training, deployment, monitoring, and iteration. - Drive research into novel AI approaches for real-time planning, human-robot interaction, and adaptive motor control. - Lead the Sim2Real strategy using physics-based simulation such as MuJoCo or Isaac Sim to train policies that transfer reliably to hardware. - Build a hiring plan, recruit and mentor team members, and manage the budget for salaries, equipment, and cloud infrastructure including GPUs and TPUs.

Requirements - M.S. or Ph.D. in Computer Science, Robotics, Electrical Engineering, or a related field. - 8+ years of experience in AI/ML, with at least 5 years in a senior leadership or directorial role. - Demonstrated experience developing and deploying real-time AI solutions for robotics, autonomous systems, or other mission-critical applications. - Strong expertise in computer vision, reinforcement learning, and large language models applied to robotics. - Proven track record managing significant technical budgets and scaling high-performance engineering and research teams. - Experience deploying models on resource-constrained edge devices, balancing inference speed, power consumption, and thermal limits.

Benefits and work setup - Fully remote with the option to work hybrid from Salem, OR, Pittsburgh, PA, or Fremont, CA offices if within commutable distance. - Anticipated base salary range of $257,000–$402,000 USD, plus 401(k) with 6% company match, equity, 100% company-paid medical, dental, vision, and short/long-term disability, EAP, unlimited PTO for exempt staff and 12 company holidays, parental leave, professional development, tuition reimbursement, relocation assistance, and annual discretionary bonus.