Associate, AI & Robotics

About Marble Marble creates hard tech companies for the New Climate Era, across energy, industry and resilience. Since 2021, we have launched 15 companies backed by some of the best investors across Europe and North America. About the role We are hiring an Associate to drive venture creation across multiple opportunity areas in physical AI, robotics, and autonomy in a broad range of sectors (e.g. energy, logistics, construction, manufacturing, mining, etc) Reporting to Partners, this role gives exposure to every aspect of venture creation: opportunity research, founder recruitment, tech and product development, economic analysis, go-to-market, fundraising, investment decisions, portfolio management. Because we work at pre-company stage, the job requires to identify what will be relevant and fundable in 2-3 years, not just what is hype today. Location: Paris, France (occasional travel for events) Language : Fluent English required. French or German is a plus. Responsibilities As part of the Venture Lead team, you will be responsible for driving our venture creation process on the opportunity areas that you own: • Opportunity research: build conviction on priority areas where Marble should create new companies, based on deep technical and market analysis. • Talent sourcing: identify talent with high founder potential and relevant domain expertise and hire them as Founders in Residence to build with Marble. • Building: work with Founders to develop venture ideas, systematically de-risk them, and turn them into new companies with team, funding and a roadmap to seed. You'll ensure robust diligence to support progress / stop decisions. Alongside these, you will take on supporting work and special projects based on priorities and your profile, such as: external content creation, events, founder resources development, portfolio support, ecosystem relations, etc. Requirements This role is ideal for an engineer or computer scientist who can build, reason from first principles, with enough technical foundations to navigate various domains where intelligent systems interact with the physical world: • Technical expertise in AI/ML applied to physical systems, robotics and autonomy. You hold a PhD or MS in Computer Science (ML/RL), Robotics, or related (EEng, MechEng), with applied experience in startup or industry. • Experience shipping systems in a real-world environment. You understand operational constraints such as safety, uptime and latency, human-in-the-loop workflows, and integrations with other systems. • Commercial orientation. Beyond tech alone, you enjoy thinking about product, customers, economics, deployment, manufacturing or supply chains. • First principles reasoning . You can break down a problem into its core constituents to understand what needs to be true for things to work. • Clear communicator. You can articulate complex ideas and defend a conviction with sharp memos and engaging presentations. • Talent intuition. You know a great founder when you meet them, and if you want to work with them, you know how to persuade them. • Makes things happen. Team player who moves fast, with high standards for excellence, and high ownership on projects from start to finish. We would love to hear from you if this sounds like you: • You have prior experience working with early stage startups, deep tech commercialisation, applied R&D, or industrial tech development. • You are AI native. You can combine frontier tools and human judgment to maximise productivity and leverage in your work. • You are relentlessly curious. You stay current in your own field, you enjoy learning about new domains, and you learn very fast. • You have a superpower. For example: technical mastery in a field, the ability to see patterns where others