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Chief Science Officer
Location
Stuttgart, Germany
Work type
Hybrid
Employment
Full Time
Experience
10-20 years
Compensation
Compensation not disclosed
Posted
2d ago
Summary and responsibilities
Role overview
Summary
The Chief Science Officer will own the end-to-end research behind Sereact's Cortex model, transforming real-world fleet data into advancements in robotic capabilities. This role involves setting the research agenda, making strategic bets on directions and resources, and leading the research organization to drive innovation from experiment to customer operations.
Role Overview
Sereact is seeking a Chief Science Officer (m/f/d) reporting directly to the CEO, based in Zurich or Stuttgart (Boston possible). Sereact builds the hardware-agnostic foundation model Cortex (vision-language-action, world models, and planning) powering single-arm, dual-arm, mobile, and humanoid robots across live logistics and manufacturing facilities. Having raised over $145M, we are hiring a scientific leader to own research end-to-end, steering our Real-World Learning Loop to convert hundreds of millions of live physical interactions into breakthrough robotic capabilities.
Key Responsibilities
- Define and execute the scientific roadmap for Cortex across VLA foundation models, world models, autonomous planning, and cross-embodiment generalization.
- Direct high-stakes research bets, allocating talent and compute budgets while winding down underperforming initiatives.
- Architect the data curation and ingestion pipeline across live fleet interactions, teleoperation, synthetic environments, and open-source datasets.
- Oversee compute infrastructure strategy, spanning large-scale model pretraining through low-latency edge inference on physical robots.
- Establish production-grounded evaluation science and benchmark suites that reflect real customer operational metrics.
- Recruit, structure, and mentor a top-tier research organization across Zurich and Stuttgart.
- Partner with the CTO, Product, and Operations to bridge frontier research into production deployments within weeks.
- Determine IP, patent, open-source, and publishing strategies across CoRL, RSS, ICRA, NeurIPS, and ICML.
- Serve as the external scientific authority with enterprise customers, academic partners, and investors.
Out of Scope by Design
- Core software platform engineering, hardware integration, and field deployment (owned by CTO/Ops).
- Isolated theoretical research that does not target real robot deployment.
- Commercial product roadmaps and pricing strategy.
First Year Milestones
- First 90 Days: Audit the fleet, datasets, and team; align the scientific roadmap with the founders; establish unified evaluation baselines.
- Month 6: Establish structured ownership, leadership roles, and a synchronized research-to-fleet deployment cycle.
- Month 12: Deploy the next-generation Cortex architecture to customer operations with verifiable gains, close senior research hires, and cement global standing.
Qualifications
- Proven leadership of research teams in robot learning, embodied AI, VLA models, RL/imitation learning, or world models.
- Track record of deploying learning models to real physical systems in non-curated, continuous environments.
- Recognized scientific standing and publications at major robotics and machine learning venues.
- Demonstrated experience allocating large compute/data resources and executing research trade-offs under production constraints.
- Clear communication skills across engineering, customer, and executive stakeholders.
- PhD in Machine Learning, Robotics, Computer Science, or an equivalent scientific track record.
- Experience with foundation model pretraining, fleet data engines, or commercial manipulation is highly advantageous.
What We Offer
- Access to high-volume proprietary interaction data from live commercial robotic fleets.
- Executive leadership role with meaningful equity participation.
- Dedicated large-scale compute resources and organizational build-out autonomy.
- Offices in Stuttgart, Zurich, and Boston, with full relocation support.
Updated 2d 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, utilizing Cortex, a vision-language-action foundation model. This hardware-agnostic model operates single-arm and dual-arm systems, mobile manipulators, and humanoids for tasks like picking, sorting, and handling returns in live production across Europe and the United States. Founded in 2021, Sereact has raised over $145 million and works with customers like Zalando, IKEA, BMW, Rohlik, and DHL. The company focuses on a "Real-World Learning Loop" where robots in production continuously learn and improve.
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Chief Science Officer
Stuttgart, Germany • Full Time