Applications Engineering Manager (West Coast)

Standard Bots

2d•$140,000 - $180,000•Remote

About The Position

Standard Bots is seeking an Applications Engineering Manager for the West Coast. This role is technically remote but territory-based, requiring the candidate to live on the West Coast. The position involves up to 25% domestic travel. This is a hands-on industrial automation engineering role that also requires leadership. The Applications Engineering Manager will be a player-coach, leading a team of Applications Engineers across their territory. Responsibilities include managing team development, workload, and customer engagement quality, serving as the escalation point for complex installations, and setting the standard for applications engineering excellence. The role emphasizes leading from the front and requires a strong technical background in industrial automation. The Applications Engineering Manager will report directly to the VP of Applications Engineering. Key responsibilities include managing and developing a team of Applications Engineers, owning capacity planning and workload distribution, setting technical and cultural standards, and conducting performance and development planning. The role also involves owning the applications engineering function for the territory, serving as a senior technical escalation point, partnering with Regional Sales Managers, and maintaining relationships with key customer accounts. Hands-on technical work includes designing solutions, reviewing integrations, commissioning cells, and supporting installs. The manager will also lead technically complex customer engagements, review team-produced designs, and travel to customer sites as needed. Continuous improvement involves defining and enforcing standards for applications engineering work, feeding back territory learnings, and contributing to playbooks and training materials.

Requirements

Genuinely fluent across mechanical, electrical, and software: PLC programming and ladder logic, pneumatics, DC power systems, robot programming, Python scripting, CAD
5+ years of hands-on applications engineering, systems integration, or automation engineering experience -- you've done the field work and done it well
2+ years of people management or team lead experience -- you've led engineers, given hard feedback, and helped someone grow
Strong customer-facing presence -- you can manage a difficult customer conversation, set expectations clearly, and represent Standard Bots credibly at a senior level
Experience managing a distributed team or territory; you know how to lead people you don't see every day
Comfort with up to 25% domestic travel for escalations, key customer engagements, and team support
Bachelor's degree in Mechanical, Electrical, Mechatronics, or a related engineering discipline -- or equivalent hands-on experience that tells the same story

Nice To Haves

Prior experience with collaborative robots (UR, Fanuc, KUKA, ABB, or similar)
Background scaling an applications engineering or field engineering function -- you've helped build something, not just inherited it
Experience with vision systems, force/torque sensing, or custom end-of-arm tooling
Familiarity with machine tending, palletizing, welding, or assembly automation applications

Responsibilities

Manage and develop a team of Applications Engineers across your territory -- setting expectations, coaching on technical and customer-facing skills, and building a team that executes at a high level
Own capacity planning and workload distribution across your team -- making sure the right engineer is on the right job and nobody is drowning
Be the technical and cultural standard-setter for your team; the bar you hold yourself to is the bar your team rises to
Conduct regular 1:1s, performance conversations, and development planning -- you invest in your people's growth, not just their output
Own the applications engineering function for your territory -- from pre-sales POC support through post-install customer success
Serve as the senior technical escalation point for complex integrations, difficult customer situations, or installs that aren't going as planned
Partner closely with your Regional Sales Manager on territory priorities, pipeline, and customer strategy -- you're the technical counterpart to their commercial leadership
Maintain strong relationships with key customer accounts in your territory; they should know you by name and trust your judgment
Stay sharp and stay in it -- you're still designing solutions, reviewing integrations, commissioning cells, and supporting installs when the situation calls for it
Lead or co-lead technically complex or strategically important customer engagements yourself
Review and sign off on solution designs, POCs, and integration plans produced by your team
Travel to customer sites as needed -- up to 25% domestically -- for escalations, key installs, and customer relationship moments
Define and enforce the standard for how applications engineering work gets done in your territory -- documentation, handoffs, commissioning checklists, customer training quality
Feed territory-level learnings back to the broader applications engineering organization and to product and engineering teams
Help build the playbooks, templates, and training materials that make every AE on your team better and every deployment more repeatable