Senior Robotics Engineering Manager - $140K-$200K + Equity in Columbus
Career & Market Insight
This is a high-impact, senior-level role at a fast-growing U.S. robotics company with notable customers like NASA and Lockheed Martin. The player-coach structure is a strong signal of a growth-stage company that values technical credibility in leadership — a meaningful differentiator compared to purely administrative engineering managers at larger enterprises.
Compensation analysis: The $140K–$200K range is competitive for an engineering manager in industrial automation. Mid-market benchmark for this level in the U.S. is typically $130K–$170K base, so the upper end of this range reflects genuine seniority. Equity (stock options) adds meaningful upside given the company's scale and trajectory.
Skills you'll develop:
- People management and team scaling in a high-growth environment
- Cross-functional leadership bridging sales, engineering, and product
- Deep robotics integration expertise (collaborative robots, PLC, vision systems)
- Playbook and process building — high-value at any future employer
Green flags: Direct report to VP level, equity for all full-time employees, clear scope ownership, and a company with real hardware in production at prestigious accounts.
Red flags to watch: The role blends IC work with management, which can lead to overload if headcount doesn't scale fast enough. Clarify team size and hiring roadmap in interviews. The 25% travel expectation should also be pressure-tested for work-life balance realities.
Overall, this is a strong career accelerator for an experienced automation engineer ready to step into formal leadership within a scaling startup.
About Standard Bots
Standard Bots is building the next generation of industrial robots — hardware that's powerful, affordable, and designed to scale. We're the largest U.S. industrial robotics company by robots shipped, and our robots are showing up on factory floors everywhere from independent machine shops to NASA and Lockheed Martin. Someone has to make sure those robots actually work — and someone has to build the team that makes that happen at scale. That's this role.
Note: This position is technically remote, but is territory-based and requires you to live on the West Coast. This role also requires up to 25% domestic travel. You're still in the field — just not living out of a suitcase 2–3 days a week.
Also note: Like every Applications Engineer at Standard Bots, this is not a software engineering role. You are a hands-on industrial automation engineer who also happens to lead people. If you've never commissioned a robotic cell, this isn't the right seat.
The Role
The Applications Engineering Manager is a player-coach. You still know your way around a factory floor — fixtures, I/O, ladder logic, robot programming, all the things — and you use that expertise every day, both to stay sharp and to earn the respect of the team you're leading.
You'll manage a team of Applications Engineers across your territory, owning their development, their workload, and the quality of every customer engagement they touch. You'll be the escalation point when installs get complicated, the person who jumps on a plane when a customer situation needs senior eyes, and the one who sets the standard for what great applications engineering looks like at Standard Bots.
This is still a hands-on role. You're not managing from a desk. You're leading from the front. You'll report directly to the VP of Applications Engineering.
What You'll Do
Team Leadership & Development
- Manage and develop a team of Applications Engineers across your territory — setting expectations, coaching on technical and customer-facing skills, and building a team that executes at a high level
- Own capacity planning and workload distribution across your team — making sure the right engineer is on the right job and nobody is drowning
- Be the technical and cultural standard-setter for your team; the bar you hold yourself to is the bar your team rises to
- Conduct regular 1:1s, performance conversations, and development planning — you invest in your people's growth, not just their output
Territory & Customer Ownership
- Own the applications engineering function for your territory — from pre-sales POC support through post-install customer success
- Serve as the senior technical escalation point for complex integrations, difficult customer situations, or installs that aren't going as planned
- Partner closely with your Regional Sales Manager on territory priorities, pipeline, and customer strategy — you're the technical counterpart to their commercial leadership
- Maintain strong relationships with key customer accounts in your territory; they should know you by name and trust your judgment
Hands-On Technical Work
- Stay sharp and stay in it — you're still designing solutions, reviewing integrations, commissioning cells, and supporting installs when the situation calls for it
- Lead or co-lead technically complex or strategically important customer engagements yourself
- Review and sign off on solution designs, POCs, and integration plans produced by your team
- Travel to customer sites as needed — up to 25% domestically — for escalations, key installs, and customer relationship moments
Standards & Continuous Improvement
- Define and enforce the standard for how applications engineering work gets done in your territory — documentation, handoffs, commissioning checklists, customer training quality
- Feed territory-level learnings back to the broader applications engineering organization and to product and engineering teams
- Help build the playbooks, templates, and training materials that make every AE on your team better and every deployment more repeatable
What We're Looking For
- Genuinely fluent across mechanical, electrical, and software: PLC programming and ladder logic, pneumatics, DC power systems, robot programming, Python scripting, CAD
- 5+ years of hands-on applications engineering, systems integration, or automation engineering experience — you've done the field work and done it well
- 2+ years of people management or team lead experience — you've led engineers, given hard feedback, and helped someone grow
- Strong customer-facing presence — you can manage a difficult customer conversation, set expectations clearly, and represent Standard Bots credibly at a senior level
- Experience managing a distributed team or territory; you know how to lead people you don't see every day
- Comfort with up to 25% domestic travel for escalations, key customer engagements, and team support
- Bachelor's degree in Mechanical, Electrical, Mechatronics, or a related engineering discipline — or equivalent hands-on experience that tells the same story
Nice to Have
- Prior experience with collaborative robots (UR, Fanuc, KUKA, ABB, or similar)
- Background scaling an applications engineering or field engineering function — you've helped build something, not just inherited it
- Experience with vision systems, force/torque sensing, or custom end-of-arm tooling
- Familiarity with machine tending, palletizing, welding, or assembly automation applications
Compensation and Benefits
The salary range for this role is $140,000 to $200,000, depending on experience. We are open to a variety of seniority levels for this role and will build compensation packages that are commensurate with seniority and skill level. Base salary is just one part of the overall compensation at Standard Bots. All full-time employees are eligible for Employee Stock Options. We also offer a package of benefits including paid time off, medical/dental/vision insurance, life insurance, disability insurance, and 401(k) to regular full-time employees.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is this role truly remote or do I need to be in an office?
What is the salary range for the Applications Engineering Manager position?
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