Senior Technical Project Manager - AI & Robotics Foundation Models (human) in Riederich, Deutschland

Senior Technical Project Manager – AI & Robotics Foundation Models

Lead the technical delivery of our most ambitious AI-driven robotics programs. In this role, you will steer cross-functional teams of AI engineers, robotics engineers and software developers to push the frontier of physical AI — fine-tuning Vision-Language-Action (VLA) models and other foundation models, and bringing them to life on real robots, from our cognitive arm MAiRA to our humanoid 4NE-1 and our service robot MiPA. You don't just manage timelines; you set the technical direction, unblock the hard problems, and bring projects over the finish line.

Your mission & challenges

• Lead multi-disciplinary teams technically and operationally — owning the end-to-end delivery of AI-in-robotics projects from concept through validated deployment on real hardware.

• Set the technical direction for fine-tuning foundation models (VLA and related multimodal architectures) and translate ambitious research ideas into shippable robot skills.

• Own the fine-tuning loop end-to-end: ensure models are trained, evaluated and iterated until they reliably perform the target task on real robot hardware.

• Drive teams to excel: scope feasibility, choose the right algorithms and data strategies, and challenge engineers to raise the bar on model performance, robustness and safety.

• Orchestrate and technically lead the full pipeline from end-to-end — teleoperation, data collection and annotation, training, simulation, deployment and validation — across our NeuraGym physical AI training center.

• Partner closely with on-site Robotics Engineers during data capture and experiments to ensure target behaviors and safety standards are met.

• Step in hands-on when blockers persist: review training scripts, diagnose data issues, help reproduce and resolve model bugs alongside the team.

• Serve as the connective tissue between AI, cloud, robotics and product teams — removing friction, aligning roadmaps, and turning lessons learned into product and platform improvements.

• Communicate progress, risks and trade-offs crisply to senior leadership and stakeholders, and make the calls that keep projects on track.

• Lead with positive energy and ambition: set a bold vision, celebrate progress, and inspire your team to take on problems others consider out of reach.
  

What we can look forward to

• Master's degree in Computer Science, Robotics, Electrical Engineering or a related technical field.

• 7+ years leading complex technical projects, with a proven track record of bringing AI or robotics products from prototype to production.

• Deep, hands-on AI know-how — strong grasp of modern foundation models and demonstrable experience fine-tuning them (VLA, vision-language, or multimodal models) for real-world applications.

• Solid background in at least one of: vision-based manipulation, reinforcement or imitation learning, or multimodal models — and the curiosity to master the rest.

• Proficient in Python (C++ a plus) with practical experience in PyTorch or TensorFlow; comfortable reading and reviewing your team's training code.

• Comfortable working directly with real robot hardware and associated middleware.

• Cloud experience (AWS, Azure, or GCP) and familiarity with robotic simulation tools (IsaacSim, MuJoCo, etc.) is a strong plus.

• A natural technical leader: you motivate, mentor and unblock engineers, set a high bar, and translate fluently between researchers, engineers and end-users.

• Strong project management instincts (Agile / Scrum); PMP, PRINCE2 or similar a plus, but technical credibility comes first.

• Excellent command of English and German (B2–C1).