Lead Robotics & Physical AI Engineer

At AC Future, you will help shape the future of intelligent living by bringing AI and robotics into travel trailers, recreational vehicles and accessory dwelling units (ADUs). You will define our technology roadmap, lead the engineering team, and turn emerging technologies into practical products through hands-on development and system integration. Working closely with Sales and Marketing, you will uncover customer needs and take promising ideas from concept to prototype, field validation and commercialization.

Responsibilities

Choose the applications.
Observe how owners, dealers and sales staff use our products. Rank opportunities by customer value, feasibility, installed cost and service needs. Recommend what to build, buy or test with a partner. Potential applications include service robots, quadrupeds for campsite inspection and robotic arms for kitchen tasks.

Design and build the system.
Select proven AI models, sensors, edge computers, actuators and commercial robot platforms. Define their interfaces and write the software that connects them. Reuse components across vehicles and stationary homes where it makes installation and maintenance easier.

Lead the hardware team.
Divide each build into mechanical, electrical, embedded and test work. Resolve interface issues at the bench, review supplier designs and run demonstrations that expose failures early.

Make prototypes safe to operate.
Define operating limits, manual overrides and behavior after power or network loss. Keep AI-generated requests separate from actuator commands. Work with vehicle engineers to validate approved gateway interfaces and safety interlocks before testing on a vehicle.

Prepare products for sale and service.
Build interactive showroom demos that the sales team can run without engineering support. Give Marketing verified performance data, and document parts, installation and service costs so Sales can quote customer pilots.

Qualification

• Four or more years in robotics, mechatronics, embedded systems or vehicle integration. Relevant doctoral or postdoctoral engineering work may count. A degree in a related technical field or equivalent practical experience is welcome.
• Experience taking a physical system from prototype to field testing or customer use, including diagnosing failures and verifying fixes.
• Hands-on C++ and Python on Linux, experience with ROS or ROS 2, and integration of sensors and actuators over CAN, Ethernet or comparable interfaces.
• Experience leading a multidisciplinary build, making component and supplier tradeoffs, and explaining cost, performance and operating limits to non-engineering teams.

Nice to have

Experience in one or more of the following areas is valuable: edge vision or voice interfaces, mobile robots or manipulators, connected appliances, or vehicle autonomy such as low-speed parking and automated hitching. Familiarity with NVIDIA Jetson or equivalent hardware, vehicle diagnostics, telemetry, or hardware-in-the-loop testing is also useful.