Product Manager
Sunnyvale, CA (onsite) · Product · Full-time
About Noble Machines
Noble Machines builds general-purpose robots that take on the most dangerous and physically demanding jobs in heavy industry, so that doing that work becomes a choice, not a necessity. Our robots work in construction, mining and energy, where dust, heat, uneven ground and the unexpected are normal conditions, not edge cases.
We were founded in 2024 by engineers from Apple, SpaceX, NASA and Caltech. We came out of stealth in March 2026, after shipping robots to a Fortune Global 500 customer within 18 months of starting. We're a Series A team in Sunnyvale, and we're building the next generation of Moby, our general-purpose robot, now.
About the role
You'll be the product lead for what Moby can do and how it gets deployed. On one side, you'll work with our AI, software and hardware engineers to decide which skills and capabilities we build next, and how we test and validate them. On the other, you'll work with customers and our field team to make sure a robot arrives on a jobsite, gets set up quickly and does real work from week one.
This is a hands-on role on a small team. You'll set the roadmap and write the specs. You'll spend time on customer sites watching how work actually gets done, and bring what you learn back into requirements engineers can build against. You'll report to our CEO and work daily with engineering, field operations and the commercial team.
This role is a fit if you like being the person who connects a robot's lab performance to what happens on a muddy site at 6 a.m.
What you'll do
- Own the roadmap for robot capabilities and deployment tooling, from scoping and sequencing through release, and hold the sequence when priorities conflict.
- Turn field reality into requirements. Visit customer sites, observe operators and supervisors, and translate site conditions and edge cases into clear requirements and measurable performance targets (for example, task success rate, cycle time, payload and terrain limits).
- Write specs engineers build against without back-and-forth: product requirements, acceptance criteria and validation plans for new skills, autonomy features and operator interfaces.
- Work across AI, software and hardware. Make trade-offs between what the robot learns, what the hardware can support and what the customer needs on site.
- Build the deployment path. Define how a customer evaluates, pilots and rolls out a robot, from site assessment and setup through acceptance testing and handoff, and the internal tools that make it repeatable.
- Partner with field operations on onboarding, operator training and site documentation, so adoption doesn't depend on any one person.
- Define and track success metrics such as task success rate, interventions per hour, uptime, MTBF/MTTR and time from arrival to productive work, and use them to set priorities.
- Represent the product with customers and prospects during evaluations, and feed what you hear back into the roadmap.
What success looks like in your first six months
- A written roadmap that engineering and leadership agree on, with sequenced milestones and explicit dependencies.
- Engineering teams building and releasing against your specs, with agreed validation criteria for each release.
- A field requirements guide that captures real site conditions, constraints and the edge cases that matter most.
- At least one customer pilot or site deployment run on the onboarding and acceptance process you defined.
- A small set of core metrics (task success, interventions, uptime, time-to-deploy) measured regularly and driving roadmap decisions.
What you'll need
- 5+ years in product management, or a mix of product and engineering, with direct ownership of a technical hardware/software product.
- Enough technical depth to hold your own with robotics, AI and hardware engineers, and to push back when a spec or estimate doesn't add up.
- A track record of writing product requirements, acceptance criteria and validation plans that teams act on.
- Experience defining product metrics and operational workflows for complex physical systems.
- Experience gathering requirements directly from customers or field teams and turning messy input into clear priorities.
- Comfort serving two groups at once, internal engineers and external customers, and making the trade-offs between them explicit.
- Willingness to work onsite in Sunnyvale and travel to customer sites, including active industrial environments.
- A degree in Computer Science, Engineering, Robotics or a related field, or equivalent practical experience.
Nice to have
- Experience at an early-stage robotics, autonomous vehicle, hardware or industrial automation company.
- Product experience with robot learning, autonomy, teleoperation, simulation or testing platforms.
- Background in field testing, customer deployments or fleet operations for complex systems.
- Knowledge of functional safety and robotics standards (ISO 10218, ISO/TS 15066, ANSI/A3 R15.06).
- Familiarity with construction, mining or energy work environments.
Compensation and benefits
The expected base salary for this role in Sunnyvale, CA is $180,000 - $210,000 per year, in line with California's pay transparency law (SB 1162). Where you land in the range depends on your experience, technical depth and skills. Base pay is one part of total compensation, which also includes:
- Equity
- Medical, dental and vision coverage
- 401(k) retirement plan
- Paid time off and other perks
Equal opportunity
Noble Machines is an equal opportunity employer. We make employment decisions based on business needs, job requirements and individual qualifications, without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, veteran status, disability status or any other status protected by federal, state or local law. We welcome applicants who need accommodations during the hiring process and will work with you to provide them.
How to apply
Apply directly on our website at https://www.noblemachines.ai/company#jobs.
