Head of QA

Amazon RIVR seeks an experienced QA leader to build and scale its quality and validation organization for autonomous delivery robots in Zürich.

The company is developing advanced wheeled-legged robots for safe, autonomous last-mile delivery. This leadership position is responsible for establishing a robust, end-to-end quality assurance and validation framework that spans hardware, autonomy, and operations, ensuring high reliability and safety for large-scale robot fleets.

Responsibilities

• Establish and manage the complete quality assurance structure covering systems, autonomy, hardware, and operations from start to finish.
• Design and execute a scalable quality strategy for robot fleets, drawing on industry standards from autonomous vehicles and robotics.
• Create a consolidated validation process that replaces isolated testing with a centralized, automated workflow.
• Collaborate directly with engineering teams to integrate quality checks early in the development phase, functioning as a technical partner.
• Build and expand a Hardware-in-the-Loop testing environment to handle complex mechatronic variable testing automatically.
• Develop automated testing frameworks across Software-in-the-Loop, Hardware-in-the-Loop, and physical field environments.
• Manage safety governance and implement rapid response pipelines for addressing critical field safety reports.
• Set quality metrics, release standards, and reliability goals for individual robots and entire fleets.
• Monitor field performance, maintenance feedback, and operational metrics to ensure ongoing system health.
• Lead root-cause investigations and drive continuous improvements for hardware and software defects.
• Expand quality infrastructure, tooling, and team workflows to support production targets of up to two million units.

Requirements

• Over ten years of experience directing quality or validation teams in fast-scaling environments.
• Demonstrated history of leading QA or validation groups in robotics, autonomous vehicles, automotive sectors, or other safety-critical domains.
• Proven ability to construct scalable quality processes for combined hardware and software products.
• Comprehensive knowledge of validation methods including Software-in-the-Loop, Hardware-in-the-Loop, and real-world testing.
• Strong systems engineering background with the capacity to integrate hardware, firmware, and AI/ML autonomy components.
• Practical expertise with automation frameworks, test infrastructure tools like dSPACE, and regression pipelines.
• Ability to collaborate cross-functionally with software, hardware, and product teams during rapid development cycles.
• Familiarity with safety regulations, compliance standards such as UL2 and ISO 26262, and field reliability monitoring.
• Comfortable navigating the dynamic processes and evolving products typical of high-growth startup environments.

Nice to have

• Background in autonomous driving, mobile robotics, or last-mile delivery solutions.
• Advanced engineering degree from a prestigious institution.
• Experience validating AI/ML or Vision-Language-Action autonomy systems.
• Knowledge of simulation environments and large-scale scenario testing.
• History of scaling QA teams from R&D prototypes to mass production.
• Understanding of regulatory certification for public space robots.
• Familiarity with MLOps pipelines and continuous integration for robotics.

About the company

Amazon RIVR is a robotics firm focused on Physical AI for doorstep delivery. Founded in 2024 as an ETH Zurich spin-off and acquired by Amazon in March 2026, the company builds safe, reliable autonomous robots for last-mile delivery. The organization values diversity and inclusion, emphasizing that collaboration is most effective when conducted in person at their Zürich office.

• The company fosters a diverse and inclusive workplace that respects every perspective.
• In-person collaboration at the office is required to maximize teamwork and productivity.