Senior Product Manager, Perception and Navigation

About the role

This role defines how Apptronik robots interpret and traverse physical spaces by owning the end to end product strategy for perception and navigation. You synthesize customer demands, safety constraints, and technical realities into a clear, executable product roadmap that the engineering team can build. Your work spans discovery, requirements definition, metric design, and validation, ensuring that perception and navigation capabilities solve real operational problems. You operate at the intersection of research, data, and business judgment, making decisions despite incomplete information. The role requires deep collaboration with engineering, design, and field teams to align on priorities and outcomes. You are judged by the reliability, safety, and impact of the products your team ships into demanding environments. This position is responsible for the full lifecycle of complex autonomy features from concept through sustained deployment.

Key facts

What you'll do

Define product roadmaps and requirements for perception and navigation capabilities that address customer needs in industrial settings.

Own the metrics, field testing regimes, and performance tracking systems that prove the reliability of autonomy and perception software.

Translate evaluation frameworks and large scale field test data into actionable product decisions and prioritized backlogs.

Drive the movement of perception and autonomy software from laboratory prototypes to reliable operation in real world conditions.

Apply practical judgment around failure modes, validation coverage, and autonomy risks to ensure safe and compliant product decisions.

Partner with engineering and design to communicate technical insights in clear language that aligns stakeholders on business impact.

Make fast decisions in uncertainty, consistently favoring velocity over perfection while managing risk.

Champion the voice of the user within cross functional teams, ensuring feedback directly influences product priorities.

Lead data collection operations, including teleoperation fleets, annotation workflows, and data curation pipelines that feed perception systems.

Ensure products meet the needs of customers in both light and heavy duty industrial environments through close engagement.

Apply knowledge of robotics and functional safety standards such as ISO 10218, ISO/TS 15066, ISO 13482, and RIA 15.08 to product planning.

Leverage synthetic and simulation generated data to develop, test, and validate perception capabilities before field deployment.

Coordinate with field teams to gather insights, validate assumptions, and iterate on product behavior in demanding settings.

Maintain a pragmatic approach that balances innovation with reliability, safety, and measurable outcomes.

Requirements

You bring 7+ years of experience in product management with a strong track record of delivering complex software products.

You possess strong experience in perception and navigation fundamentals, including detection, tracking, localization, mapping, and obstacle avoidance.

You can define evaluation metrics, field testing regimes, and performance tracking for autonomy or perception software.

You have field deployment experience that moves perception or autonomy software from the lab into reliable real world operation.

You exercise practical judgment around failure modes, validation coverage, and autonomy risks to guide safe product decisions.

You communicate excellently in both verbal and written form, translating technical insights into clear business impact.

You make decisions comfortably in uncertainty, prioritizing velocity over perfection to keep products moving forward.

You actively prioritize user feedback and advocate for that voice within internal engineering and business teams.

Your background includes at least 7 years of experience in product management that underpins this role.

You have direct experience with autonomous robots or autonomous vehicles, understanding their operational challenges and constraints.

You have worked with perception or autonomy evaluation frameworks and analyzed large scale field test data to inform product decisions.

You have experience generating or using synthetic and simulation generated data for perception system development.

You have hands on experience with data collection operations, including managing teleoperation fleets, annotation, and data curation pipelines.

You have worked directly with customers in both light and heavy duty industrial environments, understanding their workflows and constraints.

You maintain knowledge of robotics and functional safety standards, including ISO 10218, ISO/TS 15066, ISO 13482, and RIA 15.08.

Nice to have

Preferred experience includes working with teams that build and deploy physically embodied autonomous systems in industrial contexts.

Background in defining and tracking safety critical metrics for perception and navigation stacks is valued.

Experience contributing to open source robotics or simulation tools is a plus if it demonstrates practical impact.

Familiarity with data driven approaches to improving perception accuracy in diverse operating conditions is preferred.

Understanding of how sensor suites, calibration, and environmental factors affect system performance is beneficial.

Experience mentoring less experienced product managers or engineers on product strategy and execution is a nice to have.

Practical notes

This is a direct hire role based in Austin, TX.

The position may involve prolonged sitting, occasional lifting, and regular vision and hearing demands typical of an office and field environment.

Typical interview steps include product sense rounds, analytical exercises, and behavioral interviews where candidates may design features, prioritize backlogs, or estimate metrics.

Strong candidates demonstrate structured thinking, customer empathy, and the ability to communicate rationale out loud during interviews.