Forward Deployed Robotics Engineer

Forward Deployed Robotics Engineer

​​About Frontier Machines

We believe technology can unlock abundance and shared prosperity. While AI has transformed the digital world, we’re bringing it into the physical one—starting with manufacturing. We deploy fully autonomous robotic systems that increase throughput, reduce costs, and enable our customers to scale.

Our system consists of two low-cost, compliant 6-DOF robotic arms equipped with wrist-mounted fisheye cameras and jaw grippers. These robots are powered by large vision-language-action models (1B+ parameters), trained on real-world data collected from customer sites and deployed locally for real-time control.

About the Role

We are seeking a Forward Deployed Robotics Engineer to join our team and accelerate deployments of our technology. This role is primarily on-site with customers. Expect to travel ~75–90% of the time. We are an early-stage company that is moving fast and looking for people who are eager to deploy robots with lots of autonomy and ownership.

Why This Role is Different

• You own deployments end-to-end—from first visit to production
• You’ll directly shape the product through field feedback
• Your work directly generates revenue within weeks
• You’ll close the loop between data collection → model → deployment
• You’ll operate in messy, real-world environments—not controlled labs

Who Should NOT Apply

• People who want stability and predictability
• People who dislike travel or want to work in a quiet office
• Purely software or mechanical or electrical engineers

Who You Are

Capabilities

• You enjoy working with your hands and can debug mechanical and electrical issues
• You’re comfortable using the Linux command line and authoring, running, and debugging Python scripts with help from modern AI coding tools
• You have good hand-eye coordination and the patience to practice something over and over again until you master it from sports, gaming, or similar activities
• You are capable of thinking logically about abstract concepts

Interests

• You’re excited about AI, robotics, and manufacturing and working at their intersection
• You thrive in fast-moving, ambiguous environments and take ownership of outcomes
• You are comfortable working with new people and communicate clearly, with strong listening skills
• You’re excited to travel extensively (~75–90%) and work on-site with customers

What You’ll Do

• Discovery
  : Travel to customer facilities, meet with plant engineers, understand their pain points and goals, perform target tasks by hand, precisely measure the line setup, acquire product samples
• Feasibility
  : Build a replica environment in Frontier Machines’ headquarters and work with the platform team to do a proof of feasibility for a certain customer and establish the hardware, software, and approach
• Deployment and Iteration
  : Head to the customer site and implement a pilot. Set up work cells, mount the robots, provide power, network connectivity, and potentially pressurized air. Configure cameras, end effectors. Remote control the robots to collect training data. Launch cloud model fine tuning jobs, iteratively collect more data and refine the approach until the robot’s performance meets customer expectations.
• Maintenance and Scaling
  : Monitor the deployment and fix hardware and software issues increasing the reliability of the end-to-end solution. Periodically return to the site for maintenance or to collect more data to keep the deployment providing value. Bring other tasks online.

What Success Looks Like in 6 Months

• You’ve led 1-2 customer deployments end-to-end
• You can independently debug most hardware/software issues on-site
• You’ve contributed to improving deployment playbooks