VP Software

VP Software

R3 Robotics

Luxembourg or Karlsruhe

Your Role

We're hiring a VP of Software to own the software stack that powers our robotic disassembly platforms — from perception and motion planning to the fleet and data systems that support live customer sites. You'll be the senior software leader in the company, setting technical direction, building and running the engineering organization, and staying hands-on with the architecture decisions that matter. This is a role for someone who has taken robotic or industrial software from early concept through real, validated deployments at customer sites — not just in a lab.

Your Responsibilities

• Own the software strategy and architecture across perception, controls, fleet management, and cloud/data systems for R3's robotic disassembly platforms;
• Lead SW development end-to-end: take software from concept and prototype through validation and hardening at live customer and industrial sites;
• Make and defend key architectural decisions — build vs. buy, on-robot vs. cloud, real-time vs. batch — balancing reliability, safety, and speed of iteration;
• Build, manage, and grow a high-performing software organization, including hiring, mentoring, performance management, and career development;
• Partner directly with hardware, mechanical, and controls teams to ensure software and physical systems are co-designed, not bolted together;
• Establish engineering processes — code review, testing, CI/CD, incident response —appropriate forsafety-relevant industrial robotics;
• Work with customers and field teams to diagnose deployment issues and feed learnings back into the product roadmap;
• Represent software in company-wide strategic planning, reporting to the CEO and collaborating closely with the executive team.

Your profile

Must-Haves

• Proven track record taking software from concept through customer deployment to a validated, production-hardened stack — ideally in robotics, autonomy, or complex industrial/hardware systems;
• Experience with robotics middleware (e.g., ROS/ROS2), computer vision, or ML-based perception systems;
• Deep experience owning architecture and making high-stakes technical trade-off decisions across a full stack (embedded/on-robot through cloud);
• Direct people management experience — hiring, developing, and leading software engineers and engineering managers; this is a must, not a nice-to-have;
• Strong technical credibility: able to go deep in code and design reviews, not just manage from a distance;
• Comfortable operating in a fast-moving startup environment with real customer sites and real deadlines;
• Excellent communication skills in English; able to work across engineering, operations, and executive stakeholders.

Nice-to-Haves

• Background in industrial automation, EV/battery systems, or circular-economy/recycling technology;
• Experience scaling a software team through Series A/B growth stages;
• Prior experience supporting international deployments across Europe and the US.