Anywhere in Europe
Principal - Robotics Applications & Value Engineering
This is a role for the operator who finds the production problems that deserve automation, shapes the right system and value case - and who builds the application method every future Cenotian robotics launch will run on.
We are not hiring a conventional applications engineer, and we are not hiring a strategy consultant. We are hiring the person who sits where plant-floor engineering, customer economics and product design meet - with personal accountability for making automation opportunities decision-ready, and the judgment to design functions that do not yet exist.
Context
Cenotian is the market maker for robotics, restoring industrial sovereignty in the West. We provide capital and capabilities to back physical automation projects across the US and Europe. Today, the engineers who build and install robots, machines and systems on site are under immense financial pressure and unable to scale. We remove that bottleneck, giving them the customized financing and services they need to accelerate automation in Western production. Cenotian is now in hyper-growth: launching new bets, entering new markets, and building the organizational backbone to sustain it. The Special Missions Group is Cenotian's bet-taking machine: a small number of founder-grade generalists who turn the company's high-conviction bets into shipped products. The SMG now produces a new class of problem: robotics applications are surviving concept. An application that clears concept must become quoteable, financeable and repeatable at a known cost. This role exists so that every application that earns the right to detailed engineering enters it with a clear requirement and value case.
Position overview
The Principal - Robotics Applications & Value Engineering owns application selection, system concepting and value engineering as their sandbox, with a special focus in the first months on field diagnostics, reference requirements and production economics. The role sits at the intersection of the existing SMG, Sales, Technical Qualification, system-integrator and operator teams - one of the most technically commercial seats in the company. This is an execution role with design judgment.
- Reports to:
- Head of Special Missions
- Location:
- Anywhere in Europe
Key responsibilities
- 01
Own bets, the SMG way
- Own bets end-to-end in the same bets approach as every SMG principal: timeboxed, gated, kill-by-default.
- Your bets are robotics-application bets: taking a production opportunity from early conviction to a decision-ready system and value case.
- 02
Provide centralized application support across bets
- Plug into bets when they identify a process that may deserve automation - potentially several at once.
- Co-own the application with the principal or salesperson who owns the bet. You supply a kit, not a takeover: the owning principal keeps end-to-end ownership.
- Work daily with SMG principals, Sales, Technical Qualification, system integrators, OEMs and operator teams.
- 03
Shape applications and prove the value case
- Work on site with production, maintenance, engineering and operator teams to understand the current process and binding constraint.
- Establish the baseline across throughput, cycle time, labor, quality, scrap, safety, uptime, space, product mix and changeover.
- Convert field evidence into a requirement that qualified partners can quote, engineer and accept against.
- Compare system concepts, automation depth, bills of materials, customization, integration approaches, commissioning and service models.
- Carry personal accountability for the application and economic case, not process oversight.
- 04
Build products and services
- Spend a portion of your time building, like every SMG principal: diagnostic tools, calculators, simulations, reference requirements, data capture and the products the application machine itself needs.
- Use code and AI tooling to move from field evidence to decision-ready output without waiting for a large team.
- 05
Design how application engineering evolves, leave playbooks behind
- The whole playground of robotics applications and value engineering sits under this role. As Cenotian gains traction, you define what comes next: what Sales should own, what Technical Qualification should assess, what partners should engineer, where to build teams, and who to hire.
- Decide when a hacked-together method should spin off into its own service or function, and design what it looks like.
- Every application produces a playbook: replicable for the next process, the next integrator and the next country.
You'll know it's working when
Application bets hit the decision targets set at the gate.
Owning principals and salespeople describe you as a force multiplier, not a dependency.
Weak applications are rejected before they consume detailed engineering and transaction effort.
Strong applications enter quoting with clear requirements, acceptance logic and economics.
The second application of any archetype runs faster than the first because the playbook exists.
Methods spin off at the right moment: designed, staffed, measured and documented.
Candidate profile
What we require
- A track record as a top operator: has taken robotics applications, systems or technical functions from zero to live and delivered on ambitious targets.
- Ships outcomes in ambiguous, thinly-resourced environments where the playbook does not exist yet - and writes it as they go.
- Direct experience in robotics or industrial automation across applications, system integration, manufacturing engineering, technical sales, commissioning or industrial delivery.
- Thinks naturally in cycle time, throughput, reliability, implementation cost, customer value and payback.
- AI-fluent and shipping with AI tooling, collapsing what used to take a team into one person plus agents.
Nice to have
- Prior robotics applications, solutions engineering, automation concepting, value-engineering or advanced-manufacturing roles.
- Working knowledge of industrial robots, machine vision, PLCs, safety systems, end-of-arm tooling and integrated production equipment.
- Experience scoping and challenging system concepts with integrators and OEMs.
Personality
- Extremely powerful operator: strong can-do attitude, high agency and ownership.
- Thrives in ambiguity, complexity and ambitious targets.
- Ego-less by design: co-owns bets with other principals and feels as accountable for their success as the colleague who technically owns the bet.
- Begins with the production problem rather than a preferred technology.
- High stamina, sound judgment, extreme resilience.
Organizational context
The Principal - Robotics Applications & Value Engineering will work most closely with:
- Head of Special Missions - sets the application-bet portfolio, gates missions and holds the Principal accountable for decision-ready outcomes.
- Other SMG Principals - bring products and opportunities that need application design or value engineering. This Principal supplies the application kit without taking over the bet.
- Head of Commercial and Sales - bring qualified customer opportunities, own the relationships and convert strong application cases into transactions.
- Technical Qualification - independently assesses system-integrator capability, system evidence and execution risk after or alongside application shaping.
- Head of Platform & Infrastructure - takes ownership of validated application services, partner workflows and repeatable delivery methods.
- Head of Finance and Underwriting - define financing criteria and use the technical and economic case in transaction decisions.
Apply for this role
Tell us who you are and where to find you. A CV is welcome, not required.