Hardware Simulation Manager

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.

• 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.

• 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).

• 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.

• 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.

• 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