Robotic Operations Engineer

Chef Robotics is accelerating the deployment of intelligent machines in the physical world, starting with food production — the sector facing the largest labor shortage in the U.S., with 1.14M unfilled jobs today and 3.1M projected by 2030. These roles can't be offshored, making robotics essential to keeping production onshore and strengthening America's manufacturing base.Our AI-powered robots automate food prep and assembly in commercial kitchens and food manufacturing, and have already produced over 110 million meals in production — generating the world's largest proprietary dataset for deformable food manipulation. Backed by investors including Kleiner Perkins, Construct, Bloomberg Beta, and Promus Ventures, and built by a team from Cruise, Zoox, Google, Tesla, and Amazon Robotics, Chef is rapidly scaling with multiple multi-year contracts and a mission to put an intelligent robot in every commercial kitchen.About The RoleChef is seeking a Robotic Operations Engineer to be the first point of contact for incoming issues at a customer site. You'll work from our SF office, monitoring and responding to support requests that come in through Slack, Microsoft Teams, our web portal, email, and phone; triaging, troubleshooting remotely, documenting, and escalating issues across our deployed fleet.In this role, you’ll work in the office communicating with customers’ operations teams to understand issues on site, triage incoming tickets with relevant data, investigate to determine a fix based on playbooks and deploy fixes or mitigations. When help is needed you will lead escalations to Systems Support Engineers and Applications Engineers. Further, you will work with the Customer Support Manager to improve existing performance and to develop and test new tasks for the robot leading to expansion at existing customersThis is an opportunity to use your deep technical expertise and passion for robotics while having a direct impact on Continuous Improvement and Chef's revenue stream. In this role, you’ll be responsible for managing one of the core drivers of the company’s success, our relationships with our customers. If you’re excited about working in a customer-facing role on hard technical problems and you thrive in the fast-paced, dynamic environment of an early-stage startup, we’d love to hear from you. Please note that this is a customer facing role and works during off-hours.Shift is from Fri-Mon from 6 am - 4 pm PSTIn this role, you will:Investigate customer issues, triage incoming tickets with relevant data, investigate to determine a fix and deploy fixes or mitigationsPerform remote diagnostics: guide on-site operators or field technicians through troubleshooting steps via company portal and internal toolsTrack and log hardware requests, part numbers, and part quantities using the hardware request workflowAre familiar with APIs and technical RaaS products and can deeply understand technical docs with easeHave demonstrated an ability to thrive in fast-paced, reactive situations while meeting core support metrics targets (e.g. CSAT, SLA, etc.)Possess strong user empathy and are expert in the lifecycle of a support case; you can read between the lines of a user’s question, put yourself in their shoes, and get at the heart of their needs for a speedy, satisfying resolutionWrite and maintain internal external documentation: runbooks, troubleshooting guides, and FAQ articles based on real ticket patternsCollaborate with Chef’s Systems Support and Application teams to prioritize to resolve production blocking issuesWork with 3P Technicians to coordinate break/fix at a Customer SiteKeep customer portal tidy: maintain accurate ticket states, flag duplicates, and close resolved issuesWork with Chef’s Customer Support Manager to improve existing performanceWhat You Bring:BS in Computer Science, Robotics, Electrical Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, or a related fieldMinimum 1 years experience in a customer-facing role in applications engineering, deployment, solutions engineering, or similar rolesPrior experience in API integrations for Support tooling developmentComfort with command line interfaces and basic scripting (Bash, Python, JavaScript)Demonstrated track record of shipping products quickly and efficientlyAble to work independently and with minimal supervisionAbility to travel at least 20% of your time is requiredMust be available to work a flexible schedule to support customers, including on-call hoursFamiliar with Linux/Unix and/or Robot Operating System (ROS); Python or Linux experience is a plusStrong communications and project management skills to recognize, communicate, and properly document product issues, complaints and improvementsPreferred:Bilingual English/Spanish - A large number of our customer on-site teams operate in SpanishChef Robotics is solving one of the hardest problems in AI and robotics — and we ship. Our robots are in production today, generating real data that trains the next generation of food AI. Backed by Kleiner Perkins, Construct, Bloomberg Beta, and Promus Ventures, and built by a team from Cruise, Zoox, Google, Tesla, and Amazon Robotics, we're scaling fast with multiple multi-year enterprise contracts. If you want to build physical AI with real-world deployments and real impact, Chef is the place.We may use artificial intelligence (AI) tools to support parts of the hiring process, such as reviewing applications, analyzing resumes, or assessing responses and identifying potential inconsistencies or verification signals in application materials based on available information. These tools assist our recruitment team but do not replace human judgment. Final hiring decisions are ultimately made by humans. If you would like more information about how your data is processed, please contact us.Chef is an early-stage startup where equity is a major part of the compensation package. Our salary ranges are determined by role, level, and location. The range displayed on each job posting reflects the minimum and maximum target for new hire salaries for the position. Within the range, individual pay is determined by additional factors, including job-related skills, experience, and relevant education or training.In addition to salary and early-stage equity, we offer a comprehensive benefits package that includes medical, dental, and vision insurance, commuter benefits, flexible paid time off (PTO), catered lunch, and 401(k) matching.