Automation Engineer, Industrial

Vancouver, BC

Engineering | Full-time | On-site

Your New Role and Team

Sanctuary AI is building dexterity-driven Physical AI for general-purpose robots. We are looking for an experienced Automation Engineer, Industrial to help turn Physical AI prototypes into reliable, testable, and deployable industrial solutions.

This role bridges industrial process requirements, robotics, controls, simulation, and physical hardware integration. You will help determine when Sanctuary technology, traditional automation, or a hybrid approach is the right solution, then validate that decision through simulation, pilot programs, commissioning, and field testing.

You will work hands-on with AI, robotics, controls, mechanical, simulation, and external teams to translate real-world industrial tasks into measurable requirements, test plans, deployment constraints, and repeatable integration practices.

Success Criteria

Qualify industrial tasks based on cycle time, throughput, quality, safety, payload, reliability, and recovery requirements.
Translate customer and plant-floor tasks into clear engineering requirements, acceptance criteria, and realistic lab or simulation replicas.
Apply simulation, virtual commissioning, and automated testing to identify integration risks and failure modes before physical deployment.
Evaluate and integrate physical automation components, including grippers, vision systems, force and tactile sensors, vacuum systems, tool changers, I/O, and controls.
Support the transition from laboratory testing to full customer production.
Diagnose field failures and drive improvements in yield, availability, and throughput performance.
Benchmark Sanctuary systems against traditional automation and recommend when a conventional, Physical AI, or hybrid solution is most appropriate.
Document repeatable integration methods, deployment guidance, and setup workflows to improve operational and production clarity for customers and partners.
Guide engineering teams on practical automation standards, safety requirements, and production-scale reliability.
Develop automation concepts from customer requirements, translating project needs into feasible automation solutions.
Identify project risk early and develop mitigation plans, including simulation, to reduce risk before implementation.
Communicate directly with customers throughout project delivery, including on-site travel as required.

Your Experience

Bachelor's degree in Mechatronics, Electrical Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, or equivalent practical experience.
8+ years of experience in industrial automation, application engineering, factory automation, or systems integration.
Experience taking automation or robotic systems from process definition through commissioning and production.
Strong working knowledge of PLCs, HMIs, sensors, actuators, vision systems, robotic arms, industrial networks, and safety systems.
Experience with industrial task design, throughput optimization, cycle-time analysis, and production-line integration.
Experience with simulation, virtual commissioning, automated testing, or digital-twin workflows is strongly preferred.
Practical experience integrating end-of-arm tooling, grippers, vacuum systems, force sensing, tactile sensing, or other robotic hardware.
Experience working with integrators, OEMs, customers, or directly on plant floors in industrial environments.

Skills

Able to translate ambiguous industrial problems into measurable requirements and test plans.
Strong root-cause analysis and system-level debugging skills.
Comfortable working across low-level controls and high-level system orchestration.
Able to make practical tradeoffs between performance, reliability, cost, safety, and deployment speed.
Strong understanding of industrial automation standards, compliance, and safety frameworks.
Effective communicator with both technical and non-technical audiences.
Comfortable working cross-functionally in a fast-paced and changing environment.
Able to evaluate vendors, components, and integration approaches based on real-world performance.

Traits

Takes personal responsibility for outcomes and follows problems through to resolution.
Practical, positive, and focused on building robust solutions.
Listens carefully and handles disagreement constructively.
Demonstrates a consistent bias for action, communication, and collaboration.
Self-motivated and able to work independently in ambiguous situations.
Mission-driven and passionate about bringing human-like intelligence to machines.

* This role involves travel to the United States and, occasionally, other international destinations. Candidates must be able to meet the applicable travel and entry requirements for the role.

Working at Sanctuary AI

Sanctuary AI is an equal opportunity employer; employment with Sanctuary AI is governed based on skills, competence, and qualifications and will not be influenced in any way by race, color, religion, gender, national origin/ethnicity, veteran status, disability status, age, sexual orientation, gender identity, marital status, mental or physical disability, or any other legally protected status. In 2023, Sanctuary AI moved into a state-of-the-art office facility and has been recognized by LinkedIn as a Top Startup company.

Compensation and Benefits

Sanctuary offers a market-leading compensation package that includes competitive salaries, equity stakes, and a full suite of benefits for permanent employees, encompassing health coverage, paid time off, cutting-edge work facilities, and worksite flexibility by role. Our commitment to fairness ensures that our total compensation consistently surpasses market standards.

About Sanctuary AI

Founded in 2018, Sanctuary builds humanoid robots and a novel control system for them that integrates symbolic logic and reasoning with data-driven robot foundation models. We use our robots to collect vision, audio, touch, and proprioception data from the perspective of the robot while they perform real-world work tasks. We use that data to train multimodal robot foundation models. Because our systems are vertically integrated, we can design, deploy, and refine at scale. Our mission is to create the world's first human-like intelligence platform for robots.

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