Director Supply Chain & Hardware Operations

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 d