Director of Engineering, Physical AI

Scale AI•San Francisco, CA

4d•$302,400 - $378,000•Onsite

About The Position

The Director of Engineering will report to the General Manager of Physical AI, and will be responsible for leading a multi-disciplinary engineering organization. In this senior leadership role, you will own the execution of the Physical AI Data Engine — the platform powering the next generation of Physical AI/Embodied AI. You will collaborate closely with Operations and GTM to guide product direction and help solve the data bottleneck that stands between today's robotics research and real-world deployment. This role requires significant ownership in a fast-paced environment and you will motivate internal teams to set the pace for business growth. Travel will come into play.

Requirements

Bachelor's degree in Engineering, Robotics, Computer Science, or a related technical field
8+ years of engineering experience in fast-paced environments, including 4+ years direct people management demonstrated history of recruiting, mentoring, and developing high-performing technical teams through rapid growth and change
Experience leading technical execution for complex hardware-software systems, with deep domain knowledge in Robotics, Autonomous Vehicles, Computer Vision, and/or Machine Learning strongly preferred
Deep fluency in the ML development lifecycle — training pipelines, data flywheels, and evaluation frameworks as systems you've built and owned
Comfortable leading teams across Python, C++, and TypeScript/Node stacks, distributed systems, cloud infrastructure (AWS, Kubernetes), and workflow orchestration (Temporal, Airflow)
Proven ability to independently navigate, execute effectively amidst ambiguity, and strong attention to detail
Strong operator and communicator to create tight feedback loops between teams, surface problems early, and drive decisions with clarity across technical and executive audiences

Nice To Haves

MS or PhD is a plus, though strong practical experience is equally valued.
Hands-on experience with teleoperation systems (ALOHA, UMI, hand tracking), robotic hardware platforms, or imitation learning
Background in sensor fusion, SLAM, or 3D data processing
Experience scaling data collection systems globally

Responsibilities

Set and drive the technical vision across data collection infrastructure, teleoperation systems, ML training pipelines, model evaluation frameworks, annotation tooling, and research
Lead a multidisciplinary engineering organization—spanning engineering managers, software engineers, ML engineers, and ML research scientists—while designing the organizational structure, talent strategy, and culture required to scale rapidly without compromising on quality or strategic alignment
Maintain exceptional technical and operational excellence by deeply understanding team deliverables, asking incisive questions, identifying slipping standards early, and knowing precisely when to step in
Drive cross-functional alignment across Engineering, Operations, and GTM on platform architecture, release processes, and shared priorities
Collaborate with researchers and clients to architect and deliver scalable, production-grade data infrastructure tailored for complex robotics workloads