Head of Fabrication

Slip Robotics•Norcross, GA

1d•Onsite

About The Position

Slip Robotics is a B2B Robotics-as-a-Service company deploying autonomous loading and unloading robots — SlipBots and SlipLifts — at warehouse and fulfillment sites across North America. Our customers are some of the largest shippers and 3PLs in the industry, and we're scaling fast. We build the robots, we deploy them, and we keep them running. We are now building the operational foundation to support the next stage of growth. Fabrication sits at the center of that foundation. We are hiring our first Head of Fabrication to build the function from the ground up. This is a builder's role. You will not inherit a mature operation — you will create one. You'll define the strategy, stand up the processes, hire the team, spec the capital equipment, and set the standards that every future Slip robot will be built against. You'll be the person the organization looks to when the question is "how do we actually make this, at cost, at quality, at volume?" If you are energized by the prospect of owning a function end-to-end in a high-growth robotics company — and you've done something like this before — we should talk.

Requirements

10+ years in fabrication and manufacturing, with 5+ years in a leadership role running a fabrication shop, cell, or value stream.
Direct experience standing up a fabrication function from scratch — or significantly rebuilding one — in a hardware company. This is non-negotiable.
Deep technical credibility. You can walk the floor, pick up the print, and speak the trade. Your team will respect you because you know the work.
A track record of driving unit cost down on fabricated assemblies through a combination of design partnership, process engineering, and supplier strategy.
High-mix, low-to-mid volume experience. We are not an automotive plant. You should be comfortable in an environment where the product is still evolving and volumes are ramping.
Strategic range. You can zoom from weld parameters to capital plans to board-level throughput conversations without losing the thread.
Strong partnership with Engineering. You see DFM as a collaboration, not a handoff.
Financial and operational literacy. You can speak fluently about unit economics, throughput, capacity, and the tradeoffs between them.
Comfort with ambiguity. You build systems where none exist. You do not wait to be told what the process should be.

Nice To Haves

Experience scaling a hardware business from early-stage to meaningful revenue scale (roughly $5M to $50M+).
Background in robotics, material handling equipment, heavy equipment, or similar capital goods.
Familiarity with NetSuite (ERP) and Propel (PLM).
Formal Lean, Six Sigma, or TPS training — and a bias for using it pragmatically.
Experience negotiating and managing strategic fabrication supplier relationships.

Responsibilities

Fabrication strategy. Set the long-term direction for in-house vs. outsourced fabrication. Own the make-vs-buy call on every fabricated component in the SlipBot and SlipLift BOM.
The shop floor. Welding, cutting, machining, forming, and finishing. Layout, workflow, tooling, fixturing, and throughput.
The team. Hire, develop, and lead fabricators, welders, machinists, and shop leadership. Build the culture and the standards.
Unit cost on fabricated assemblies. Partner with Engineering on design for manufacturability. Drive measurable, sustained reductions in BOM cost through process improvement, supplier leverage, and design partnership.
Capital equipment planning. Build the investment roadmap — what we buy, when we buy it, and what ROI we expect.
Capacity and throughput. Translate the production forecast into a capacity plan. Identify bottlenecks before they become constraints.
Quality of fabricated output. Partner with the Quality team on inspection standards, first-article processes, and continuous improvement.
Safety. Own the safety program for the fabrication floor.
Process and documentation. Build the SOPs, work instructions, and training programs that let the shop scale without losing consistency.