Forward Deployed Robotics Engineer
About Frontier MachinesWe believe technology can unlock abundance and shared prosperity. While AI has transformed the digital world, we’re bringing it into the physical one—starting with manufacturing. We deploy fully autonomous robotic systems that increase throughput, reduce costs, and enable our customers to scale.Our system consists of two low-cost, compliant 6-DOF robotic arms equipped with wrist-mounted fisheye cameras and jaw grippers. These robots are powered by large vision-language-action models (1B+ parameters), trained on real-world data collected from customer sites and deployed locally for real-time control.About the RoleWe are seeking a Forward Deployed Robotics Engineer to join our team and accelerate deployments of our technology. This role is primarily on-site with customers. Expect to travel ~75-90% of the time. We are an early-stage company that is moving fast and looking for people who are eager to deploy robots with lots of autonomy and ownership.Why This Role is DifferentYou own deployments end-to-end—from first visit to productionYou’ll directly shape the product through field feedbackYour work directly generates revenue within weeksYou’ll close the loop between data collection → model → deploymentYou’ll operate in messy, real-world environments—not controlled labsWho Should NOT ApplyPeople who want stability and predictabilityPeople who dislike travel or want to work in a quiet officePurely software or mechanical or electrical engineersWho You AreCapabilitiesYou enjoy working with your hands, using CAD, and comfortable learning how to debug mechanical and electrical issues with help from the platform teamYou’re comfortable using the Linux command line and authoring, running, and debugging Python scripts with help from modern AI coding toolsYou have good hand-eye coordination and the patience to practice something over and over again until you master it from sports, gaming, or similar activitiesYou have the ability to lift up to 45 poundsInterestsYou’re excited about AI, robotics, and manufacturing and working at their intersectionYou thrive in fast-moving, ambiguous environments and take ownership of outcomesYou are comfortable working with new people and communicate clearly, with strong listening skillsYou’re excited to travel extensively (~75-90%) and work on-site with customersWhat You’ll DoDiscovery: Travel to customer facilities, perform target tasks by hand, precisely measure the line setup, acquire product samplesFeasibility: Build a simple representative environment in Frontier Machines’ headquarters and work with the platform team to do a proof of feasibility for a certain customer and establish the hardware, software, and approachDeployment and Iteration: Head to the customer site and implement a pilot. Set up robots and configure cameras, end effectors. Remote control the robots to collect training data. Launch cloud model fine tuning jobs, iteratively collect more data and refine the approach until the robot’s performance meets customer expectations.Maintenance and Scaling: Monitor the deployment and fix hardware and software issues increasing the reliability of the end-to-end solution. Periodically return to the site for maintenance or to collect more data to keep the deployment providing value. Bring other tasks online.What Success Looks Like in 6 MonthsYou’ve led 1-2 customer deployments end-to-endYou can independently debug most hardware/software issues on-siteYou’ve contributed to improving deployment playbooksExample Backgrounds that Might be a Good FitA new grad computer science major who has done some CAD, 3D printing, and arduino projectsA mechanical engineer with 3 years of experience working experience who did high school robotics or has coded up some simple games using pythonExpected Compensation$80,000/year annual salary + equity + benefits + deployment bonusHigh performers may earn $120k–$200k+ annually depending on deployment volume.