Director Supply Chain & Hardware Operations
Confirmed on the employer's own hiring board on Oct 20, 2026. First seen by Alion on Oct 20, 2026. Sereact scores A on the Alion truth index.
Who We Are:
We build the intelligence that lets robots sense, reason, and act in the real world, moving beyond the lab and into everyday industrial settings like warehouses and factories. Our technology closes the automation gaps that traditional systems can't solve. We are on a mission to redefine how physical work gets done, and we're looking for curious, bold thinkers to help shape the future of robotics with us.
Overview:
Our AI-driven pick-and-place and returns-handling cells combine robot arms, adaptive force-controlled grippers, AI vision and a safety cabinet, all driven by Cortex, our vision-language-action model. They already run in live customer operations across the EU and US. We are scaling from around 50 units a year to several hundred, and getting there means moving production to external contract manufacturers with full quality control at the supplier. We're looking for a Director of Supply Chain & Hardware Operations to own the path from a release-ready design to a QA'd unit shipped to the customer. You will report to the CEO and receive frozen designs from our Director of Hardware Product Engineering & Industrialization through a shared Design-Transfer Gate.
Your Responsibilities:
Contract Manufacturing & Industrialization
Move gripper, cell, cabinet and final assembly to external contract manufacturers and EMS partners, with suppliers building to spec and shipping direct to customers where possible
Take frozen designs from Product Engineering into repeatable volume production, including ramp plans, build and work instructions and jigs
Run a first pilot build of grippers outside our own facility within your first 90 days
Supplier Management & Quality
Select, negotiate with and manage suppliers, including commercial terms and capacity planning
Build redundancy for critical single points of failure such as the robot arm and long-lead or sole-source parts
Own incoming inspection, supplier quality, first article inspection, PPM targets and the manufacturing side of the RMA process
Planning, Inventory & Logistics
Build S&OP, forecasting and buffer stock so parts are staged weeks ahead of each deployment
Reduce supplier lead times and keep demo and fleet hardware available
Own shipping and import and export across the EU and US
Cost & Operating Model
Own hardware unit cost and bring COGS down over time
Implement the split between bespoke builds and a standardized product line on the operations side
Set up the supply chain operating model, KPIs and review cadence for your function
Qualifications:
Education and Experience
10+ years in supply chain, manufacturing or hardware operations, including several years in a leadership role
A track record of taking a complex electromechanical product from prototype to hundreds of units per year, with production that kept running after the ramp
Experience standing up outsourced contract manufacturing, supplier quality, logistics and inventory from scratch in a scaleup or growth-stage company
Degree in engineering, supply chain, operations or a related field, or equivalent practical experience
Skills
Hands-on supplier management, including selection, negotiation and supplier quality
Manufacturing quality, NPI and industrialization experience
Supply and demand planning and inventory management
Comfortable installing operating discipline, accountability and KPIs in a fast-moving, resource-constrained environment
Fluent English and willingness to travel to suppliers and customer sites
Additional Skills / Nice to Have
Experience in robotics, warehouse automation, AMRs or autonomous vehicles
Experience turning demos and pilots into repeatable production deployments
Experience working with product engineering on design-to-cost and DfM
German fluency
What We Offer:
Competitive salary and equity in a fast-growing Series B robotics company
Flexible PTO and a collaborative, high-ownership culture
Ownership of our supply chain and manufacturing setup as we scale to hundreds of units a year