Head of Robot Hardware

**Remote, with strategic on-sites in Taipei (project kickoffs, system bring-up, first production batches) | Full time** **You'll be the person who takes Anvil's next robot from a sketch of what it should do to a physical machine that ships at scale.** Anvil is building the platform layer for Physical AI — robotics hardware and software that's radically more accessible and suitable for a new generation of intelligent automation than legacy industrial solutions. We own and operate our own manufacturing. Sourcing and production were built in-house from scratch, and in our first 12 months, on that line, we built and shipped 200+ robots (OpenARM and OpenYAM manipulators, paired with a custom Linux Devbox, and teleop kits, cameras, and end effectors) to customers like NVIDIA, Qualcomm, Toyota, Google, Cobot, and Path Robotics in 60+ countries, while we grew from two founders to 30 people across three offices. Very few robotics companies at any stage can say that. Almost none can this early. The devkits we ship are the wedge, not the business. Volume has earned us what money alone can't buy: a custom force-sensing actuator partnership with major actuator OEMs, meaning our next robots ship with hardware capability nobody else has — and an install base that doubles as the distribution channel. That's the strategy: aggregate volume → supply chain partners → unique long term advantage. The next step is a bigger one: a bimanual robot platform — a completely new kinematic, built from the ground up around our custom force-sensing actuators — that has to work as a production deployable product manufacturable at scale. **The situation you're walking into:** - Anvil has real hardware DNA — the devkit class hardware line already ships to customers — but no one is yet owning the next generation deployment ready platform, from concept through mass production. - This is not a revision of the OpenARM line. The new robot is a clean-sheet design — new kinematics, designed from scratch — and the first product built around our custom force-sensing actuators. - We're deliberately going firmware-light for this generation: compute is a full Linux Jetson on a carrier board with EtherCAT out to the actuators, so at most there are a few simple boards to design. The engineering weight is mostly mechanical, with EE that's light and straightforward — power distribution, connector hubs, harnessing. - You'll work daily alongside mechanical and electrical engineers, plus our in-house production team and component vendors, but you won't be their formal manager. Anvil is small enough that this role is about technical direction and judgment, not headcount. - You'll report to a mix of the CEO and CTO — practically, mostly the CEO, who sits in Taipei next to the rest of the hardware team day to day. **What you'll own:** - The technical vision and system level architecture for Anvil's next robot: what it's made of, how it moves, how its subassemblies fit together, and how the wiring runs through all of it. - Translating kinematic and product requirements into a physical, buildable machine — material choices, actuation approach, subassembly breakdown — not just a concept sketch. - Manufacturability from day one: making the tolerance and process calls that determine whether this robot can go from one prototype to hundreds of units without a redesign. - Guiding the work of mechanical and electrical engineers and vendors so their pieces come together into one working robot, even though you won't personally do all of their deep technical work. - Direct ownership of DFM, tooling, and production readiness on Anvil's own manufacturing line in Taipei, and direct engagement with the component vendors (sheet metal, CNC, motors, electronics) who feed it. **What the first 100 days look like:** - By day 30: ramped on OpenARM/OpenYAM's design history and lessons learned, the force-sensing actuator program, and the in-house Taipei production line and vendor relationships. Teardown of…