Harper
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Robotics / AI

Head of Robotics Systems

Full-time🇰🇷 Seoul

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About The Job
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Job Title
Head of Robotics Systems (Hands-on Leadership)

Salary
Competitive base + Equity — top-of-market leadership comp at a frontier robotics AI startup

Location
Seoul (Gangnam / Yeoksam) — On-site

Company Description
A frontier robotics startup building robot foundation models for real-world bimanual manipulation — backed by Samsung, Hyundai, and LG, and already deploying with enterprise customers. The robotics systems layer — robot platforms, end-effectors, low-latency/high-frequency control, teleoperation, and sensing — is the foundation that turns real-world robot data into reliable robot intelligence. You'll lead and build it.

The Role
A deeply hands-on leadership role for someone who wants to build the physical backbone of a frontier robotics company. You'll own the architecture, execution, and evolution of the robotics systems layer — and still jump into the system when execution is required. Set direction, make hard architecture decisions, raise the engineering bar, mentor exceptional builders, and stay close to the robots and the real-world failure modes.

What You'll Own

  • Architecture & technical roadmap for the robotics systems stack (platforms, end-effectors, control, sensing, teleoperation).
  • Low-latency / high-frequency control; end-effector / Cartesian-space control, inverse kinematics, trajectory execution, controller–policy integration.
  • End-effectors and multimodal sensing (vision, depth, LiDAR, tactile/force, inertial); teleoperation for high-quality demonstration capture.
  • Turning experimental systems into reliable real-world execution; supporting customer demos and technical evaluations.
  • Leading, mentoring, and growing the Robotics Systems team across Sensing, End-Effector, and Platform & Control.

Who You Are

  • 9+ years hands-on building, integrating, or deploying real robotic systems, or equivalent evidence of exceptional technical ownership.
  • Strong in robot manipulation, control, sensing, calibration, and hardware–software integration.
  • Owned a major robotics platform, manipulation system, control stack, teleoperation system, or end-to-end architecture.
  • Led robotics projects, mentored engineers, or managed technical execution across a team.
  • Strong Python and working C++; ROS or ROS2; deep kinematics, dynamics, control, calibration, and system-level debugging.
  • Makes practical architecture decisions under ambiguity; stays deeply hands-on while scaling.
  • Excellent communication in Korean and written English.

Bonus Points

  • Led a robotics systems / manipulation / controls / platform / teleoperation team.
  • Platforms such as OpenArm, Nero, FR3, UR series, RB-Y1, Vega.
  • Bimanual, deformable-object, dexterous, or industrial manipulation; multi-DoF end-effectors (3–5 finger hands).
  • Multimodal sensing (tactile/force, LiDAR, depth, inertial, position tracking); low-level/impedance/real-time control.
  • Large-scale robot demonstration capture; customer/factory/lab deployment.
  • MuJoCo / Isaac Sim / Gazebo; IL / VLA / robot foundation models / world models; startup leadership & hiring.