Head of Autonomy

Teleo•Palo Alto, CA

6h•Onsite

About The Position

Teleo, a Havoc company, is a robotics company that transforms construction heavy equipment, including loaders, dozers, excavators, and trucks, into autonomous robots for commercial and defense applications. Our technology enables a single operator to supervise and control multiple machines simultaneously, delivering significant productivity gains while improving operator safety and comfort. Teleo was founded by a team of experienced technology leaders who previously led the development of Lyft's Self-Driving Car program and Google Street View. Teleo recently announced its merger with Havoc AI, a fast-growing defense technology company developing coordinated fleets of autonomous maritime vessels. This is a unique opportunity to join a team building technology with real-world impact. You will work on cutting-edge 100,000-pound autonomous robots and engineer complex systems at the intersection of hardware, software, robotics, and AI.

Requirements

M.S. or Ph.D. in Robotics, Computer Science, Electrical or Mechanical Engineering, or a related field, or equivalent experience
10+ years building autonomy or robotics software, with at least 5 years managing engineering teams, including managers or technical leads
Shipped autonomy that runs on physical robots or vehicles in real operating conditions, not only in simulation
Hands-on depth in at least two of: perception, planning, controls, simulation, or learning-based control, and working fluency across the full stack
Practical experience with learning-based methods (imitation learning, RL, or large pretrained models) and a clear view of where they beat classical approaches and where they don't
Built or run data and evaluation infrastructure that tied model changes to field performance
Strong C++ and Python; able to review code and designs at a senior engineer's level
Experience deploying autonomy and ML models on embedded compute (NVIDIA Jetson-class or similar)
Track record of hiring and developing strong engineers
Comfortable working on-site in Palo Alto and spending time in the field on job sites and test areas
Must be a U.S. person (U.S. citizen or lawful permanent resident) due to export control requirements

Nice To Haves

Autonomy for off-road, construction, mining, agriculture, or defense ground vehicles
Hydraulic machines or articulated manipulators, including system identification and control of hydraulic actuators
Behavior cloning from human operator data and sim-to-real transfer for contact-rich tasks
Multi-robot coordination or fleet management systems
Supervised autonomy or teleoperation systems, and designing for human intervention
Functional safety (ISO 13849, IEC 61508, ISO 25119 or similar) and safety cases for autonomous systems
Took an autonomy product from prototype to multi-site commercial deployment
Led autonomy work on defense programs
Scaled a team through a period of fast growth

Responsibilities

Own the autonomy architecture from sensors to actuation: perception, localization, world modeling, planning, control, and the interfaces between them
Set the roadmap for moving from hand-engineered components to learned ones (imitation learning, RL, VLA-style policies), and decide where classical methods should stay
Drive a composable, skill-based approach to material manipulation (loading, pushing, scooping, dumping, digging) that transfers across machine types
Build the simulation and data engine: operator data capture, sim-to-real validation, closed-loop evaluation, and regression testing tied to field metrics
Scale autonomy to multi-machine fleets working alongside remote operators, including task allocation and coordination on shared sites
Shorten the time to bring autonomy up on a new vehicle model, working closely with hardware and vehicle integration
Define safety cases and release gates for autonomy software, in partnership with safety and compliance
Work with the hardware and software teams to make compute, sensor, and onboard performance trade-offs for the Teleo product and fleet
Manage the autonomy team directly, including technical leads for each area
Hire and retain strong engineers; grow the team as deployments scale
Run planning, prioritization, and execution for the autonomy org; set clear goals and hold a high bar on code and review quality
Coach engineers on technical depth and career growth; build leads where the team needs them
Represent autonomy to executive leadership, customers, and partners, and translate field needs into engineering priorities