Senior Technical Project Manager - AI & Robotics Foundation Models (human)

Senior Technical Project Manager – AI & Robotics Foundation Models

Lead the technical delivery of our most ambitious AI-driven robotics programs. In this role, you will steer cross-functional teams of AI engineers, robotics engineers and software developers to push the frontier of physical AI — fine-tuning Vision-Language-Action (VLA) models and other foundation models, and bringing them to life on real robots, from our cognitive arm MAiRA to our humanoid 4NE-1 and our service robot MiPA. You don't just manage timelines; you set the technical direction, unblock the hard problems, and bring projects over the finish line.

Your mission & challenges

Lead multi-disciplinary teams technically and operationally — owning the end-to-end delivery of AI-in-robotics projects from concept through validated deployment on real hardware.

Set the technical direction for fine-tuning foundation models (VLA and related multimodal architectures) and translate ambitious research ideas into shippable robot skills.

Own the fine-tuning loop end-to-end: ensure models are trained, evaluated and iterated until they reliably perform the target task on real robot hardware.

Drive teams to excel: scope feasibility, choose the right algorithms and data strategies, and challenge engineers to raise the bar on model performance, robustness and safety.

Orchestrate and technically lead the full pipeline from end-to-end — teleoperation, data collection and annotation, training, simulation, deployment and validation — across our NeuraGym physical AI training center.

Partner closely with on-site Robotics Engineers during data capture and experiments to ensure target behaviors and safety standards are met.

Step in hands-on when blockers persist: review training scripts, diagnose data issues, help reproduce and resolve model bugs alongside the team.

Serve as the connective tissue between AI, cloud, robotics and product teams — removing friction, aligning roadmaps, and turning lessons learned into product and platform improvements.

Communicate progress, risks and trade-offs crisply to senior leadership and stakeholders, and make the calls that keep projects on track.

Lead with positive energy and ambition: set a bold vision, celebrate progress, and inspire your team to take on problems others consider out of reach.

What we can look forward to

Master's degree in Computer Science, Robotics, Electrical Engineering or a related technical field.

7+ years leading complex technical projects, with a proven track record of bringing AI or robotics products from prototype to production.

Deep, hands-on AI know-how — strong grasp of modern foundation models and demonstrable experience fine-tuning them (VLA, vision-language, or multimodal models) for real-world applications.

Solid background in at least one of: vision-based manipulation, reinforcement or imitation learning, or multimodal models — and the curiosity to master the rest.

Proficient in Python (C++ a plus) with practical experience in PyTorch or TensorFlow; comfortable reading and reviewing your team's training code.

Comfortable working directly with real robot hardware and associated middleware.

Cloud experience (AWS, Azure, or GCP) and familiarity with robotic simulation tools (IsaacSim, MuJoCo, etc.) is a strong plus.

A natural technical leader: you motivate, mentor and unblock engineers, set a high bar, and translate fluently between researchers, engineers and end-users.

Strong project management instincts (Agile / Scrum); PMP, PRINCE2 or similar a plus, but technical credibility comes first.

Excellent command of English and German (B2–C1).