Chef Robotics is on a mission to accelerate the advent of intelligent machines in the physical world. As the rise of LLMs like ChatGPT has shown, AI has the potential to drive immense change. However, we believe AI’s biggest impact will be in the physical world, given industries like manufacturing, food, and transportation represent 90% of global GDP. We’re starting with food, with a goal to put an intelligent robot in every commercial kitchen in the world. We have signed multiple multi-year contracts with various large food companies and we are growing fast. We’re backed by investors like Kleiner Perkins, Construct, Bloomberg BETA and Promus Ventures. We have a great team, where you will be surrounded by talented engineers and tech leaders from companies like Cruise, Zoox, Google, Verb Surgical, Tesla, Nuro, Vicarious, Amazon Robotics, Strateos, Built Robotics, Facebook, Plenty, Yelp, and Microsoft.
The Job
The next decade of technology growth will be driven by AI and robotics. Do you want to join in the excitement, opportunities and rewards that will come? Do you want to be part of a young company at the forefront? If you do, know that it will be hard work, if you are up for it, then this might be the job for you.
The job is to provide best-in-class customer service by serving as the primary contact for deployed robots at customer sites. This includes providing onsite training, onsite software updates, onsite testing of new configurations, onsite maintenance and repairs, supporting customers directly over the phone and through messaging such as Slack, as well as supporting customers more indirectly by conducting in-office testing for improvements and replicating bugs from the field.
Chef robots include AI imaging, perception and autonomy using cameras and other sensors, end effector components to move ingredients, a robotic arm and other mechatronics. The job requires technical skills to understand the basics of these components and how they function together in the robotic system.
Our customers’ businesses depend on Chef’s robots, therefore it is essential that any noted issues are resolved quickly and to the highest quality standards. This role serves as part of the Customer Support team.
Since we have customers across the US and Canada this job requires up to 25% travel. And since you would be the face of the company dealing directly with customers this position requires excellent communication necessary for developing and maintaining good internal and external relations.
You
You are passionate about robotics and manufacturing automation. You have a strong track record of supporting machines in a production environment, preferably intelligent robots. You know how to manage your time, are self-driven, capable of figuring out what needs to be done, scheduling, and executing to customer needs. Your skills include mechatronics trouble shooting and repair. You have a working knowledge of computers and electronics so that you can load, configure and deploy new software.
Experience in a production environment is needed to understand our customers’ concerns and operations. You have good interpersonal communications skills with the ability to handle high stakes, high pressure customer interactions in a professional and engaging manner. You enjoy travel and are prepared to spend much of your time visiting customer sites locally within the Bay Area and occasionally outside the Bay Area
Essential Duties and Responsibilities
* Respond to customer day-to-day support requests. Troubleshoot with them remotely, dispatch third party technicians, or resolve issues onsite yourself.
* Regularly visit Bay Area customer sites to train customer team on robot best practices, observe and suggest ideas for operational improvements, and maintain relationships with customer teammates who work directly with the robots.
* Conduct testing at customer sites and at Chef office to support customer operations. This includes testing new software releases, new hardware development and customer-specific meals and ingredients.
* Support Applications Team in robot installations.
* Maintain records of customer interactions, repairs, and help requests. Thoroughly report in-field bugs to engineering team and collaborate on potential solutions.
* Recognize, communicate, and properly document product issues, complaints and improvements.
* Coordinate onsite schedule (yourself, vendor, other teammates, etc.) in alignment with customer expectations.
* Escalate problems, when needed, to appropriate resource(s) for solutions. This includes internally to Chef teammates and externally to departments within our customers’ organizations
* Assist in the development and refinement of troubleshooting and maintenance processes and internal tools.
* Deliver consistently positive interaction with customers. When you are onsite, your contacts should think "great! here comes some help!", and not "I don’t want to deal with this person".
* Ensure compliance with safety regulations and policies, and clean and safe work environment.
Requirements
- Ability to be at customer sites within Bay Area 50% of the time, Chef HQ in San Francisco 50% of the time, and occasionally travel to customer sites outside of Bay Area for 1-2 weeks at a time.
- Must be able to reliably and regularly provide own transport to customer sites within 1.5 hrs drive of Chef HQ (San Francisco)
- Must be able to lift and carry 30 lbs.
- Availability to work a flexible schedule to support customers, including some weekends, nights, and on-call hours.
- 3+ years field experience with robotics, IoT, or similar HW/SW industries
Bonus Points
- Experience creating Standard Operating Procedures and checklists.
- Familiar with Python.
- Familiar with Linux.
- Spanish working proficiency.
- Setup and perform IT / networking projects.
- Experience with troubleshooting/debug/repair of electrical and mechanical instrumentation
- Experience with industrial manufacturing industry
Equal Opportunity Employer
We are an equal opportunity employer and value diversity at our company. We do not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, color, sex, gender identity and expression, sexual orientation, national origin, ancestry, citizen status, uniform service member and veteran status, marital status, age, pregnancy status, protected medical condition, genetic information, disability, or any other protected status.
Multiple studies have found that a higher percentage of women and BIPOC candidates won’t apply if they don’t meet every listed qualification. Chef values candidates of all backgrounds. If you find yourself excited by our mission but you don’t check every box in the description, we encourage you to apply anyway!
