Lead Hardware Engineer – Production

About Tutor

We believe general-purpose, generally-intelligent robots will be built in our lifetimes. Robots will work in our factories, move our goods, walk on our streets and eventually be in our homes. To build that future, research and deployment must work in lockstep: real-world operation must make the technology better and better technology must make deployment easier. We're looking for the thinkers, builders, and researchers who want to be part of that loop.

As an AI robotics company that deploys its inventions directly into the facilities that need them, on state-of-the-art hardware, everything we build at Tutor has a direct impact on the global, physical economy. In 2026 we opened our first manufacturing facility in Watertown, MA, and we're scaling to 1,000+ robots in the field by 2028.

Our Culture

We believe that something truly special can happen when talented, motivated people work together; at Tutor, every member of our team is empowered to have real impact in everything that they do. We're characterized by both technical excellence and next-level collaboration and respect.

Why This Role Matters

Getting from dozens of robots to more than 1,000 is an engineering problem, not a headcount problem. Many of the designs, test systems and manufacturing processes that will get us there don't exist yet. This role is the technical leader who builds them.

The Role

You're the technical lead of our Production Engineering team. You're a senior hardware engineer the hardware team respects, the person who jumps in to root-cause a problem on a robot we need to ship, and the mentor who raises the bar for the engineers around you. You report to the Head of Manufacturing.

Your mission is to build the environment that lets our manufacturing team produce high-quality robots at a competitive cost: designs that are easy to build, test and service, manufacturing systems that catch problems early, and test coverage that keeps defects out of the field.

Your first priority is getting robots through bring-up and FAT clean: drive the top recurring build failures to permanent fixes and stand up the test systems our line needs.

This is not a traditional manufacturing engineering role. You've designed and owned hardware. You can open a schematic, put a scope on a board and find the problem, and you shape the product with design engineering instead of building whatever is handed over.

Example projects you might work on:

• Bench tests for drive and axis subassemblies so failures are caught before they're installed on a robot
• A functional test for the robot's main electrical bulkhead, the brains of the robot
• Inline testing so every robot is tested station to station and drives off the line
• A DFMEA on our current platform to rank failure risks and design out the top ones in upcoming builds
• Harness and access changes that make repairs faster on the line and in the field

What You'll Own

What Success Looks Like

Required

Preferred

Why Join

• Build the production system. The designs, test systems and processes that take us from dozens of robots to 1,000+ don't exist yet. You build them.
• Set the technical bar. You define the standard for Production Engineering and mentor the engineers who grow with it.
• Real hardware, real stakes. Debug robots on the floor, shape the design with hardware engineering and see your fixes running at customer sites.
• AI is how we work. You'll have the tools and the backing to automate what most factories still do by hand.
• Direct line to leadership. Report to the Head of Manufacturing and work side by side with hardware, software and deployment teams.

How We Work: Our Values in This Role

We hire against our values, and we'll interview you against them too. Here's what they look like in this seat:

• Love of the Game. You'd rather be at the bench with a scope on a board than in a slide review.
• Gumption. When a robot won't ship, you're already on the floor finding out why.
• Beginner's Mindset. You question how we build and test today, and you change your mind fast when the data says to.
• Belief in Each Other. You raise the bar for the engineers around you and earn the hardware team's respect by being right and being fair.
• Keep Moving Forward. You find the fix that keeps the line moving today, then make it permanent.
• Customer Obsession. Every shortcut on the line shows up at a customer site. You build it right.