Director, Simulation

Director, Simulation

Time type: full time

Posted on: August 13, 2024

Job requisition id: R3836

Who we are

Our work matters – robotics is transforming the world of commerce. Every day our intelligent robots are responsible for getting food and merchandise to thousands of stores across North America. We’re an industry changer – we created the first and only fully autonomous, end-to-end supply chain solution.

Today, we are driving towards even bigger ideas – and we have the people, technology and leadership to fully realize these aspirations. We have the excitement and ambition of a startup with the benefits and resources of a proven organization.

What we need

Symbotic is currently seeking an experienced Director to lead our Simulation team. The candidate must understand the importance of fostering a strong team environment and the ability to develop trusting relationships with their team members. We are looking for a creative and collaborative person who thrives in an agile development environment. This role manages a talented team of roboticists working to provide a suite of simulation tools to support our development and testing teams. The development teams are primarily responsible to develop solutions to the challenges in managing a fleet of robots tasked with handling diverse individual cases in a warehouse environment with high reliability.

The Simulation team supports these efforts through enabling continuous and thorough testing of software changes during development to prevent issues in production environments. This team also builds tools for simulation aided design of new systems and behaviors that allows data driven decision making before embarking on innovative and novel system designs.

Not only is high-level technical contribution expected, but the role also requires excellent communication and leadership skills, and the ability to collaborate in a highly cross-functional environment.

What you’ll do

• Lead a talented group of managers, engineers, and roboticists to provide a cutting-edge simulation tool-suite supporting continuous development and testing of software components.
• Meeting project commitments and delivering high quality releases.
• Lead formal design reviews to evaluate the current design and develop plans automated validation and testing pipelines.
• Collaborating with other engineering teams on leveraging simulation to plan and design future projects and features.
• Managing the day-to-day activities of approximately 10-15 engineers and managers.
• Establishing best practices and statistical rigor around simulation-driven decision-making.
• Translate strategic objectives into tactical action plans and establish teams which can execute those plans.
• Continue to build the team by hiring and onboarding new engineers and managers.
• Engage externally with our customers to ensure seamless integration of new features into customer production sites.

What you’ll need

• 10+ years of software development experience in simulation, software testing, and related fields.
• At least 5 years focused on leading or managing technical teams.
• BS, MS or PhD in Robotics, Computer Science or related fields.
• Knowledge of Simulation, Synthetic Data Generation, and Automated Testing Framework techniques suitable for deployment to large-scale engineering teams.
• Detailed understanding of robotic simulation pipelines, emulation, hardware-in-the-loop simulation techniques, and related technologies.
• Extensive experience with simulating robotic agents in challenging environments including fleet sizes in the thousands of autonomous agents.
• Solid experience with software process and version control tools.
• Expert level communication (oral and written) and documentation skills; must be comfortable explaining complex software systems and programming concepts.
• Experience with fielded autonomous vehicles is preferred.

Our Environment

• Up to 10% of travel may be required. Employees must have a valid driver’s license and the ability to drive and/or fly to client and other customer locations. 

• The employee is responsible for owning a credit card and managing expenses personally to be reimbursed on a bi-weekly basis. 

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