Back to jobs
New

Hardware Simulation Manager

Austin, TX

Apptronik is a human-centered robotics company developing AI-powered robots to support humanity in every facet of life. Our flagship humanoid robot, Apollo, is built to collaborate thoughtfully with people, starting with critical industries such as manufacturing and logistics, with future applications in healthcare, the home, and beyond.

We operate at the cutting edge of embodied AI, applying our expertise across the full robotics stack to solve some of society's most important problems. You will join a team dedicated to bringing Apollo to market at scale, tackling the complex challenges like safety, commercialization, and mass production to change the world for the better.

The Role

Apptronik is seeking an Engineering Manager – Hardware Simulation to build and lead our centralized Simulation Center of Excellence from the ground up. As the creator and leader of this critical department, you will define how Apptronik uses predictive physics to accelerate the development of the Apollo humanoid robot.

You are not just managing a team; you are shifting the engineering culture from "build and test" to "simulate, predict, and validate." You will hire, mentor, and lead a multi-disciplinary team of simulation experts covering structural, thermal, and robotics/kinematic domains—with a strategic roadmap to expand into electronic simulation (SI/PI/EMI) in the near future. Your leadership will ensure that every gram of material, every thermal pathway, and every dynamic movement is mathematically optimized before we cut metal.

Key Responsibilities

Team Building & Leadership

  • Build from Scratch: Define the headcount roadmap, draft specialized job descriptions, and actively recruit top-tier talent across multiple simulation disciplines.
  • Mentorship & Development: Cultivate a high-performance culture. Provide technical mentorship, establish clear career paths, and guide your engineers through complex, multi-physics problem-solving.
  • Resource Management: Triage simulation requests from across the hardware organization. Prioritize workloads to ensure the simulation team acts as a strategic accelerator, not a bottleneck.

Technical Strategy & Architecture

  • Toolchain Ownership: Evaluate, select, and manage the enterprise software suite (e.g., Ansys, Abaqus, Altair, Star-CCM+, Adams). Negotiate licenses and define the compute infrastructure (on-prem clusters or cloud HPC) required to run massive, system-level models.
  • Standardization: Establish company-wide Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) for meshing, boundary conditions, solver settings, and material libraries to ensure consistency and accuracy across all analyses.
  • Test Correlation: Partner heavily with the Hardware Integration & Test teams to ensure every simulation model is rigorously correlated with real-world physical data (strain gauges, thermal imaging, modal testing).

Multi-Physics Domain Oversight

  • Structural Dynamics: Oversee the analysis of high-energy impacts (falls), high-cycle fatigue, and mass optimization (topology/generative design) for the robot's chassis and limbs.
  • Thermal-Fluid Systems: Guide the CFD and transient thermal modeling of dense, high-power compute clusters and high-torque actuators packed into tight humanoid envelopes.
  • Robotics Simulation: Lead the multi-body dynamics and kinematic simulations to validate joint loads, motor sizing, and dynamic stability during complex humanoid maneuvers.
  • Electronic Simulation (Roadmap): Develop the strategy and eventual hiring plan to bring electronic simulation in-house, focusing on Signal Integrity (SI), Power Integrity (PI), and EMI/EMC compliance for high-speed robotic nervous systems.

Qualifications

  • Experience: 10+ years of engineering experience in complex electromechanical product development, with at least 3–5+ years of direct people management experience leading simulation or analysis teams.
  • Technical Depth: Deep, hands-on subject matter expertise in at least one primary domain (Structural FEA, Thermal/CFD, or Multi-Body Dynamics) with a strong conversational understanding of the others.
  • Industry Background: Proven track record in Robotics, Aerospace, Automotive, or advanced Defense hardware, where minimizing mass while maximizing durability and thermal dissipation is critical.
  • Tool Proficiency: Extensive historical experience with industry-standard solvers (Ansys, Abaqus, LS-DYNA, Nastran, Flotherm, etc.) and an understanding of their respective strengths and weaknesses.
  • Strategic Vision: Demonstrated ability to build a department from the ground up, implement new enterprise toolchains, and successfully change organizational behavior to adopt simulation-driven design.

Education

  • Academic Background: BS, MS, or PhD in Mechanical Engineering, Aerospace Engineering, Robotics, or a relevant technical discipline.

PHYSICAL REQUIREMENTS

  • Prolonged periods of sitting at a desk and working on a computer 
  • Must be able to lift 15 pounds at times
  • Vision to read printed materials and a computer screen
  • Hearing and speech to communicate 

 

 

*This is a direct hire.  Please, no outside Agency solicitations. 

Apptronik provides equal employment opportunities to all employees and applicants for employment and prohibits discrimination and harassment of any type without regard to race, color, religion, age, sex, national origin, disability status, genetics, protected veteran status, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, or any other characteristic protected by federal, state or local laws.

Create a Job Alert

Interested in building your career at Apptronik? Get future opportunities sent straight to your email.

Apply for this job

*

indicates a required field

Resume/CV

Accepted file types: pdf, doc, docx, txt, rtf

Cover Letter

Accepted file types: pdf, doc, docx, txt, rtf

Select...
Select...
Select...

Technology Control Restrictions: As a person in this position will have access to technical data and/or computer software maintained by the Company, which includes export-controlled technical data and/or computer software, successful applicants must be eligible under U.S. export control regulations to access such information.

Select...
Select...
Select...

Voluntary Self-Identification

For government reporting purposes, we ask candidates to respond to the below self-identification survey. Completion of the form is entirely voluntary. Whatever your decision, it will not be considered in the hiring process or thereafter. Any information that you do provide will be recorded and maintained in a confidential file.

As set forth in Apptronik’s Equal Employment Opportunity policy, we do not discriminate on the basis of any protected group status under any applicable law.

Select...
Select...
Race & Ethnicity Definitions

If you believe you belong to any of the categories of protected veterans listed below, please indicate by making the appropriate selection. As a government contractor subject to the Vietnam Era Veterans Readjustment Assistance Act (VEVRAA), we request this information in order to measure the effectiveness of the outreach and positive recruitment efforts we undertake pursuant to VEVRAA. Classification of protected categories is as follows:

A "disabled veteran" is one of the following: a veteran of the U.S. military, ground, naval or air service who is entitled to compensation (or who but for the receipt of military retired pay would be entitled to compensation) under laws administered by the Secretary of Veterans Affairs; or a person who was discharged or released from active duty because of a service-connected disability.

A "recently separated veteran" means any veteran during the three-year period beginning on the date of such veteran's discharge or release from active duty in the U.S. military, ground, naval, or air service.

An "active duty wartime or campaign badge veteran" means a veteran who served on active duty in the U.S. military, ground, naval or air service during a war, or in a campaign or expedition for which a campaign badge has been authorized under the laws administered by the Department of Defense.

An "Armed forces service medal veteran" means a veteran who, while serving on active duty in the U.S. military, ground, naval or air service, participated in a United States military operation for which an Armed Forces service medal was awarded pursuant to Executive Order 12985.

Select...

Voluntary Self-Identification of Disability

Form CC-305
Page 1 of 1
OMB Control Number 1250-0005
Expires 04/30/2026

Why are you being asked to complete this form?

We are a federal contractor or subcontractor. The law requires us to provide equal employment opportunity to qualified people with disabilities. We have a goal of having at least 7% of our workers as people with disabilities. The law says we must measure our progress towards this goal. To do this, we must ask applicants and employees if they have a disability or have ever had one. People can become disabled, so we need to ask this question at least every five years.

Completing this form is voluntary, and we hope that you will choose to do so. Your answer is confidential. No one who makes hiring decisions will see it. Your decision to complete the form and your answer will not harm you in any way. If you want to learn more about the law or this form, visit the U.S. Department of Labor’s Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs (OFCCP) website at www.dol.gov/ofccp.

How do you know if you have a disability?

A disability is a condition that substantially limits one or more of your “major life activities.” If you have or have ever had such a condition, you are a person with a disability. Disabilities include, but are not limited to:

  • Alcohol or other substance use disorder (not currently using drugs illegally)
  • Autoimmune disorder, for example, lupus, fibromyalgia, rheumatoid arthritis, HIV/AIDS
  • Blind or low vision
  • Cancer (past or present)
  • Cardiovascular or heart disease
  • Celiac disease
  • Cerebral palsy
  • Deaf or serious difficulty hearing
  • Diabetes
  • Disfigurement, for example, disfigurement caused by burns, wounds, accidents, or congenital disorders
  • Epilepsy or other seizure disorder
  • Gastrointestinal disorders, for example, Crohn's Disease, irritable bowel syndrome
  • Intellectual or developmental disability
  • Mental health conditions, for example, depression, bipolar disorder, anxiety disorder, schizophrenia, PTSD
  • Missing limbs or partially missing limbs
  • Mobility impairment, benefiting from the use of a wheelchair, scooter, walker, leg brace(s) and/or other supports
  • Nervous system condition, for example, migraine headaches, Parkinson’s disease, multiple sclerosis (MS)
  • Neurodivergence, for example, attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), autism spectrum disorder, dyslexia, dyspraxia, other learning disabilities
  • Partial or complete paralysis (any cause)
  • Pulmonary or respiratory conditions, for example, tuberculosis, asthma, emphysema
  • Short stature (dwarfism)
  • Traumatic brain injury
Select...

PUBLIC BURDEN STATEMENT: According to the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995 no persons are required to respond to a collection of information unless such collection displays a valid OMB control number. This survey should take about 5 minutes to complete.