Head of System - Humanoid

Head of System – Humanoid Robotics | Munich (on-site)

A deep-tech robotics company building humanoid machines from the ground up is looking for a Head of System to own how their robot works - as a machine, not just a product roadmap.

This isn't a coordination role. You'll define the system architecture end to end: kinematic and dynamic structure, sensor placement, compute distribution, and how mechanics, electronics and software resolve into one coherent design. When a problem falls between disciplines and nobody owns it - that's you.

What you’ll be doing

• Owning the robot's physical and functional architecture -DoF, kinematics, mass/inertia strategy, sensor selection, actuator spec, compute topology
• Closing the loop between design intent and measured reality (system ID, model fidelity, dynamic behaviour)
• Holding the interface contract with hardware ie. mass, power, thermal and bandwidth budgets
• Working with the AI leadership on sim-to-real transfer -what the platform needs to give learned policies a fighting chance
• Leading software across embedded, motion control, perception integration and robot infrastructure
• Shaping functional safety architecture for a machine that can't rely on stopping to be safe
• Defining what "working" means for the robot as a system, and owning acceptance criteria
• Building and mentoring a team of roboticists and engineers

What they’re looking for

• Humanoid/legged robot experience essential - from concept through to a walking robot
• 10+ years deep in robotics: dynamics, control, kinematics, mechatronic system design
• Genuine cross-disciplinary fluency - across mechanical, electronics, software and AI and knowing where to make trade offs
• Real organisational leadership with a track record of owning roadmaps and growing engineers
• Enough software leadership credibility to set direction and hold a bar, without needing to write the code yourself

Nice to have: learning-based control exposure, functional safety standards (ISO 13849, IEC 61508, or the emerging humanoid work in ISO 25785/22440), experience taking a robot from lab to real deployment.