Applying for Chief Science Officer at Sereact? Bypass the ATS Black Hole.
Traditional job applications often get trapped in algorithmic filters. With HireMail, uncover verified hiring managers and founders at Sereact, generate tailored AI outreach hooks, record personalized video pitches, and dispatch directly through your authenticated Gmail.
Decision-Maker Intel
Recruiters & founders
Video & Voice Pitch
Interactive player embed
AI Live ATS Scraper
Fresh, unposted roles
Chief Science Officer
Location
Stuttgart, Germany
Work type
Hybrid
Employment
Full Time
Experience
10-20 years
Compensation
Compensation not disclosed
Posted
1d ago
Summary and responsibilities
Role overview
Summary
The Chief Science Officer will lead Sereact's research agenda for Cortex, focusing on vision-language-action models and learning from real robots. This role involves owning the data and compute strategies, building evaluation science, and leading the research organization to drive the next generation of robotic capabilities.
Head of Research / VP of Research – Sereact
Locations: Zurich, Switzerland or Stuttgart, Germany (Relocation support available)
Funding: $145M+ raised ($116M Series B led by Headline; strategic backing from Zalando)
Customers: IKEA, BMW, Zalando, DHL, Rohlik
About the Role
Sereact builds the robot brain for physical work. Our hardware-agnostic vision-language-action (VLA) foundation model, Cortex, powers single/dual-arm manipulators and humanoids across live commercial operations in Europe and the US. With a fleet generating over 500 million real-world manipulation interactions, we are seeking a Scientific Leader to own Cortex research end to end and accelerate our Real-World Learning Loop.
Key Responsibilities
1. Research Strategy & Big Bets
• Set the technical agenda for Cortex: VLA models, world models, planning, and task/embodiment generalization.
• Direct resource allocation: decide which scientific directions receive compute and talent, and sunset what does not work.
• Own the compute and training roadmap from large-scale pretraining to low-latency edge inference on physical robots.
2. Fleet Data & Evaluation Science
• Own the continuous learning data engine: curate deployment data, teleoperation, synthetic data, and active fleet data acquisition.
• Build deployment-centric benchmarks and validation gates that measure real operational performance in customer facilities, not just public leaderboards.
• Turn research results into deployable policies that reach customer fleets in weeks and operate reliably 24/7.
3. Leadership & Scientific Standing
• Build, scale, and mentor the research organization across Zurich and Stuttgart.
• Partner with founders on publication, open-source, and patent strategies, representing Sereact at top venues (CoRL, RSS, ICRA, NeurIPS, ICML).
• Act as Sereact’s scientific voice for key enterprise customers, strategic partners, and top academic institutions.
Scope Boundaries (By Design)
• Out of Scope: Core platform software, hardware design, field operations, and product pricing (owned by CTO and VP Ops).
• Research Focus: Applied, frontier science directly tied to real customer deployments, not an isolated academic lab.
What We’re Looking For
• Research Leadership: Proven track record directing research in robot learning, embodied AI, VLA models, imitation/reinforcement learning, or world models.
• Real-World Validation: Demonstrated experience running policies on physical robots outside lab environments over sustained periods.
• Strategic Acumen: Proven ability to allocate massive compute/data budgets and pivot away from dead-end research paths.
• Scientific Eminence: PhD in Machine Learning, Robotics, or equivalent record, with publications at top-tier conferences and a network that attracts elite talent.
• Cross-Disciplinary Communication: Ability to communicate complex machine learning concepts effectively to engineers, executives, and commercial clients.
• Preferred: Hands-on experience with foundation model pretraining, autonomous fleet data engines, or high-throughput industrial manipulation.
First-Year Success Milestones
• 90 Days: Unify fleet evaluation benchmarks, master deployment datasets, and align roadmap with founders.
• 6 Months: Establish team cadence and robust experimental pipelines from training cluster to live robots.
• 12 Months: Ship the next generation of Cortex to production fleets with measurable operational gains, expanding Sereact’s standing in embodied AI.
What We Offer
• Direct access to petabytes of live deployment data and massive compute infrastructure.
• Executive leadership role with meaningful equity in a high-growth scale-up.
• Relocation assistance and visa support for hubs in Zurich, Stuttgart, and Boston.
Updated 1d ago
Candidate fit
Skills and qualifications
Additional skills
Experience
10-20 years
How this role is positioned
Role classification
Job domains
Industries
Employment
Full Time
Contract duration
Permanent
Hiring type
Direct
Global hiring
Location specific
Offer details
Compensation and benefits
Compensation
Compensation not disclosed
Location, schedule, and role shape
Work setup
Work conditions
Bandwidth profile
Context on the employer
Company snapshot
Company
Sereact
Team size
Growing team
Location
Stuttgart, Germany
Sereact builds the robot brain for physical work. Cortex, our vision-language-action foundation model, is hardware-agnostic: the same model runs single-arm and dual-arm systems, mobile manipulators and humanoids that pick, sort and handle returns in live production across Europe and the US. Customers include Zalando, IKEA, BMW, Rohlik and DHL. Founded in 2021 in Stuttgart, with an R&D hub in Zurich and a US office in Boston. We have raised more than $145 million, most recently a $116 million Series B led by Headline, with Zalando as a strategic investor. We work in small, senior teams with a flat structure; execution counts more than titles.
Popular Domains
Explore opportunities across specialized functional areas.
Trending Industries
Discover roles in the world's most innovative sectors.
Chief Science Officer
Stuttgart, Germany • Full Time