---
title: 'Director of Innovation at UATX'
canonical: 'https://feeny.ai/job/director-of-innovation-uatx-austin-a5jea20gyd8t'
type: 'job'
last_seen: '2026-09-13'
---

# Director of Innovation at UATX

- **Company:** UATX
- **Location:** Austin, TX
- **Employment:** full-time
- **Work type:** onsite
- **Posted:** 2026-07-17
- **Last confirmed live:** 2026-09-13
- **Apply:** https://jobs.lever.co/uaustin/7a23dc8f-b667-42be-bbca-97b96ef07266

## Job description

Job Summary

The Director of Innovation is the Executive Director’s principal partner in leading both the long-term development and the day-to-day work of Innovation Labs.  The role spans the full range of Innovation Labs’ efforts: the on-campus AI/Robotics/Prototyping Lab, work at the Applied Engineering Lab in Bastrop, Polaris, academic programs, major projects, partnerships, fundraising, and future labs and facilities. The Director of Innovation should be able to move comfortably between long-range planning, developing new programs and initiatives, solving immediate problems, and coordinating the people needed to move the work forward.

The Innovation Director is also the hands-on technical leader for student inventors and founders. The role combines technical mentorship, lab leadership, and a high volume of student-facing build support. The Innovation Director will work closely with students on their multi-year, self-directed projects that students develop and build throughout their time at UATX.

## Responsibilities

- Work closely with the Executive Director to set priorities and shape the long-term direction of Innovation Labs.

- Help develop, carry out plans, and expand the Innovation Lab’s capabilities for new programs, partnerships, facilities, courses, and major projects .

- Maintain a clear view of work across Innovation Labs, including the on-campus AI/Robotics/Prototyping Lab, the Applied Engineering Lab in Bastrop, future sites, Polaris and our other academic innovation programs, UATX’s Capital Factory partnership, fundraising, AI-related projects, and external collaborations.

- Serve as a technical liaison to student builders across disciplines. Meet and build with students, writing code, vibe coding with AI, designing systems, prototyping hardware, and iterating toward working systems

- Assist in day-to-day operations of the AI/Robotics/Prototyping Lab: readiness, workflow, safety norms, tool access, and “the lab works” reliability

- Lead workshops, build sessions (robotics, prototyping methods, rapid software/hardware iteration, “vibe coding,” etc.), and occasionally classes

- Help students move from idea → prototype → working system, with a bias toward execution

- Collaborate with the Executive Director to expand the lab’s capability over time (tools, processes, partnerships, project pathways)

- Help lead the creative direction, student-facing use, and project pipeline for the Bastrop facility, ensuring the space develops as a flagship environment for invention, prototyping, applied engineering, and the future of technical education at UATX

## Qualifications

- Demonstrated execution leadership in complex environments (education + tech/hardware ecosystems is a plus)

- Strong systems thinking + ability to get into details when needed

- Comfortable operating in ambiguity; thrives in early-stage institution-building

- Builder-operator mindset; credible with technical and academic stakeholders

- Strong engineering foundation

- Startup experience required; has either founded a startup or been an early builder at one

- Evidence of building real systems end-to-end

- Comfortable teaching by doing: pairing, live debugging, design reviews, and hands-on guidance

- A builder-operator temperament: practical, fast, high standards, student-centered

## About UATX

## Company Overview
- **One-liner**: The University of Austin (UATX) is a private, donor-funded, tuition-free four-year college that combines a Great Books core curriculum with rigorous training in mathematics, sciences, and artificial intelligence.
- **Entity Type**: Private (non-profit, donor-funded)
- **Headquarters**: Austin, Texas, United States
- **Founded**: 2022
- **Founders**: Not publicly listed (leadership includes President Carlos Carvalho, Provost David Ruth, and Interim Dean of STEM Clinton Staley)

## Core Business
- Primary industry: Higher Education
- Target customers: Undergraduate students (B2C) selected on merit alone, as well as high school and college students via summer programs
- Mission or purpose: "Forming the leaders and builders a free country depends on" by reviving fearless inquiry and open discourse

## Products & Services
- **[Bachelor of Arts in Liberal Studies]**: Four-year undergraduate degree with a core curriculum centered on the Western tradition, small seminars (~15 students), and quantitative training including mathematics, data science, and AI. Tuition-free for all admitted students.
- **[Polaris Projects]**: Capstone experiences where students launch a company, intern for a public official, pursue original research, or build alongside industry leaders.
- **[Summer Fellowship]**: A one-week, credit-bearing residential program for rising high school juniors and seniors; includes building an LLM from scratch, studying Lincoln and Douglass, and debating founding principles. Cost: $2,500 (full scholarships available).
- **[Weekend Programs]**: Free, short-term on-campus events offering small seminars, talks with faculty/guests, and a taste of UATX life.

## Market Standing
- **Valuation/Market Cap**: Not applicable (non-profit)
- **Key Metric**: Tuition-free model; entirely donor-funded; no government funding. First freshman class entered Fall 2024.
- **Notable Investors/Partners**: Not publicly disclosed. Supported by donors (names not listed).
- **Growth Signals**: Rapidly expanding faculty (nearly 30 full-time professors as of late 2024). Hiring for multiple professor positions and administrative roles. New campus operations in Austin and Bastrop, Texas.

## Competitive Advantages
- **Tuition-free**: All students pay no tuition, funded entirely by donors, eliminating student debt.
- **Merit-based admissions**: No essays, no legacy preferences – only SAT, ACT, or CLT scores.
- **Small class sizes**: Seminars of ~15 students with heavy reading and high standards.
- **Unique curriculum**: Great Books core combined with quantitative training in AI and data science.
- **Intellectual independence**: Strong commitment to open inquiry, civil discourse, and academic freedom; no government funding.

## Strategic Focus
- **Faculty expansion**: Hiring professors across STEM, history, and other liberal arts disciplines to support growing student body.
- **Program development**: Building the Center for Science, Technology, Engineering & Mathematics (CSTEM) and expanding the undergraduate concentration in quantitative fields.
- **Campus growth**: Establishing a permanent campus in Austin (current operations at temporary locations).
- **Brand building**: Attracting high-achieving students through the free-tuition model and distinctive intellectual mission.

## Why Work Here
- **Mission-driven environment**: Opportunity to help shape a new university dedicated to open inquiry and rigorous education.
- **On-site roles**: Positions are based in Austin, TX (and Bastrop, TX for some roles). Remote/hybrid policy not specified; likely on-site.
- **Small, collaborative community**: Close interaction with faculty and leadership; ability to influence curriculum and culture.
- **Faculty benefits**: Long-term stability (though no tenure), full-time teaching load of six quarter-length courses per year, and support for research.
- **Diverse openings**: Roles range from professors and academic leadership to accounting and innovation partnerships.

## Sources
1. [uaustin.org](https://uaustin.org/)
2. [jobs.lever.co/uaustin](https://jobs.lever.co/uaustin)
3. [uaustin.org/our-people](https://uaustin.org/our-people/)
4. [jobs.lever.co/uaustin (Professor of CS)](https://jobs.lever.co/uaustin/2c923907-2611-47da-bef1-5bcf30d8963f)
5. [indeed.com](https://www.indeed.com/cmp/The-University-of-Austin-(uatx))

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