Location: Melbourne, Australia. On-site.

Reports To: General Manager, Australia

Compensation: AUD $170,000–$220,000 per annum plus superannuation. Equity available.

Travel: Occasional travel to suppliers, deployment sites and US operations.

Role Summary The Head of Production Engineering turns proven robot capabilities into reliable, manufacturable and serviceable LUMI machines. You will integrate the complete system and turn build and field experience into improvements that work across machines and sites.

Reporting to the General Manager, Australia, you will build and lead a small, high-performance engineering team in Melbourne, with company backing to hire the team within an agreed plan and budget.

You will stay deep in the engineering: designing, building, integrating, testing and debugging alongside the team. Advanced AI tooling is central to how the team develops and improves the product. You own supported-product engineering, validated production methods, configuration and technical release.

Manufacturing owns factory execution and accepted builds; Site Production & Delivery owns fleet readiness, maintenance and customer operations. You provide the engineering fixes and controlled documentation both need.

Responsibilities

- Hands-on robotics development. Design, build, integrate, test and debug across mechanical, electrical, controls and software interfaces. Validate changes physically and improve design for manufacture, assembly and serviceability.
- Production methods and validation. Develop and validate assembly methods, tooling, work instructions and manufacturing tests. Define acceptance requirements and prove methods with Manufacturing before routine production.
- Engineer out recurring failures. Use build and field evidence to diagnose root causes and validate permanent fixes. Improve reliability, quality and production cost without weakening safety or performance.
- Configuration, integration and technical release.



Own engineering changes, system integration and release validation. Maintain controlled bills of materials, drawings, schematics, software versions and release records, including affected units, implementation and rollback requirements.
- Transfer from R&D.; Turn proven capabilities into production-ready designs. Resolve integration risks and verify manufacturing and operational readiness against agreed acceptance evidence.
- Support global production and deployment. Help AU and US teams diagnose difficult problems. Provide validated fixes, controlled build and service instructions and occasional commissioning or field support.
- Technical safety and quality. Lead design-risk reviews and ensure discipline owners provide verification and validation evidence. Resolve or escalate material risks before release and record technical decisions and limitations.
- Build and lead the team. Hire strong engineers, set a high technical bar and develop consistent delivery. Coach directly, address performance gaps and remain an active contributor.
- AI-enabled engineering. Build AI workflows for development, coding, analysis, testing, diagnostics and documentation. Coach the team, verify outputs against requirements and test evidence, and retain accountability for decisions.

Requirements

- A record of deploying robots or complex electromechanical systems and making them reliable outside the lab, with clear examples of problems you personally solved and validated.
- Technical depth in a relevant engineering discipline,



supported by qualifications or equivalent practical experience.
- Experience hiring and leading a small, high-performance engineering team while personally designing, integrating, testing and debugging.
- Extreme fluency with AI tooling. Extensive practical use of coding assistants, agents and automation, with demonstrated gains in development speed and rigour. Strong judgement about verification and physical testing.
- Experience with design for manufacture, assembly and serviceability, production tooling, work instructions and manufacturing tests.
- Experience controlling configurations, engineering changes and releases across hardware, controls and software.
- Disciplined root-cause analysis that distinguishes immediate recovery from validated permanent fixes.
- Sound judgement on machine safety, technical risk and release evidence.
- Explicit technical writing and effective collaboration with manufacturing and delivery teams across locations.
- Ownership and follow-through in a growing business with changing priorities.
- Australian working rights and availability for full-time, on-site work in Melbourne and occasional travel.

Nice to Haves

- Mobile robotics, autonomy, industrial automation or heavy equipment operating outdoors.
- Scaling low-volume production or transferring manufacturing methods between facilities.
- Production software, controls integration, diagnostics and regression testing.
- Supplier qualification, component substitution, reliability testing or cost reduction.
- Utility-scale solar construction or remote deployment experience.

About Luminous

Luminous Robotics develops autonomous robots for utility-scale solar installation. With teams in Australia and the US, we connect engineering, manufacturing and field deployment.

You will build physical products, choose a small team you trust and have direct influence over how the engineering is done.

📌 Head of Production Engineering (Melbourne)
🏢 Luminous
📍 Melbourne