--- title: 'Operations Lead at Watney' canonical: 'https://feeny.ai/job/operations-lead-watney-san-francisco-be77taz7js4n' type: 'job' last_seen: '2026-09-12' --- # Operations Lead at Watney - **Company:** Watney - **Location:** San Francisco, CA - **Employment:** full-time - **Work type:** onsite - **Posted:** 2026-09-10 - **Last confirmed live:** 2026-09-12 - **Apply:** https://jobs.ashbyhq.com/watney/57d203d6-7893-4747-a922-f0156e87eac0 ## Job description ## Our Mission Expand human ambition in the physical world. Critical infrastructure is constrained by labor shortages, hazardous working conditions, and operational complexity. Watney builds and deploys autonomous robotic systems that increase the speed and capacity of buildout, starting with data centers. ## About the Role At Watney, the Operations Lead keeps the robot fleet physically working, allocated, and deployed - at headquarters and at customer sites. Sites are being built out under real construction, power, network, and security constraints. You'd own the operations end to end. This is a hands-on role against live hardware and live construction. ## What You'll Do - Own robot allocation and fleet readiness across competing internal demands - Stand up and run new customer sites through construction, security, and network build-out, and drive production-cycle pilots to a real, time-boxed conclusion. - Build the scheduling and coordination processes - Be the escalation point between technicians, engineering, and site logistics. You May Be a Good Fit If You: - Have run physical operations under a hard hardware-availability constraint. - Have stood up a new physical site from lease to operational, including the vendors and permitting in between. - Have shift-based or 24/7 operations experience and are comfortable with ambiguity We’re committed to building a diverse, inclusive team. At Watney Robotics, we welcome people of all backgrounds and identities, and we make hiring decisions based on skills, experience, and potential. If you’re passionate about robotics but don’t meet every requirement, we still encourage you to apply! Curious to learn more? Follow us here on [X](https://x.com/watneyrobotics/) and [LinkedIn](https://www.linkedin.com/company/watneyrobotics/about/) ## About Watney ## Company Overview - **One-liner**: Develops autonomous robotics systems to operate datacenter and supercomputing infrastructure, partnering with hyperscalers to accelerate compute scaling. - **Entity Type**: Private (Seed stage) - **Headquarters**: San Francisco, California, United States - **Founded**: 2024 - **Founders**: Ryan Gannon (Co-Founder), Sean Cheong (Co-Founder) ## Core Business - **Primary industry**: Robotics Engineering / Datacenter Infrastructure Automation - **Target customers**: Hyperscale cloud providers and large-scale data center operators (Enterprise B2B) - **Mission or purpose statement**: “Deploy an abundant, intelligent workforce” by enabling the growth of critical infrastructure through autonomous robots. ## Products & Services - **Autonomous Datacenter Robotics Platform**: A fleet of autonomous robots designed for datacenter buildout and breakfix operations. The system handles physical tasks such as server installation, cable management, maintenance, and repair, reducing human labor and accelerating deployment timelines. ## Market Standing - **Valuation/Market Cap**: Not publicly available - **Key Metric** (Private): **$21.0M in total funding** (Seed round closed May 30, 2025) - **Notable Investors/Partners**: Conviction, Abstract, A* (A-star). Partners with the world’s largest hyperscalers (names not disclosed). - **Growth Signals**: - Headcount grew **183.3% year-over-year** to 11 employees (as of mid-2026) - Monthly headcount growth of **+6.2%** - Active job postings rose **+28.6% month-over-month** and **+350% quarter-over-quarter** - Currently hiring for 9 roles spanning engineering, operations, and strategy ## Competitive Advantages - **Deep domain focus**: Solely dedicated to datacenter and supercomputing infrastructure – a narrow, high-stakes vertical with massive scaling demand. - **Elite founding team**: Includes former GSM for iPhone, former founding engineer at Worldcoin, and a builder of the world’s fastest EV racecar (ETH Zurich). - **Early partnerships with hyperscalers**: Already working with the largest cloud providers, providing critical validation and a clear path to production. - **Full-stack ownership**: Company is moving from prototype to production fleets, offering engineers end-to-end impact from hardware to software. ## Strategic Focus - **Scale from prototype to production fleets**: Transitioning from small-scale deployments to large autonomous fleets. - **Deepen hyperscaler partnerships**: Expand contracts and joint development roadmaps with major cloud providers. - **Grow engineering and operations teams**: Aggressively hiring across robotics, software, facilities management, and deployment strategy to support production scaling. ## Why Work Here - **In-Office culture**: All roles are based in San Francisco (HQ); the company emphasizes in-person collaboration. - **Ground-floor opportunity**: With outsized ownership and visibility, employees shape the “rollout playbook” for a category-defining robotics company. - **Technical challenge**: Work on real systems that combine robotics, AI, hardware, and infrastructure at scale. - **Notable peers**: Colleagues include alumni from Scale AI, Amazon Web Services, Tools for Humanity, Warburg Pincus, and the US Army Corps of Engineers. - **Growth trajectory**: A very young company (founded 2024) with rapid hiring and clear product-market fit, ideal for early-stage career builders. ## Sources 1. [watneyrobotics.com](https://watneyrobotics.com/) 2. [linkedin.com/company/watneyrobotics](https://www.linkedin.com/company/watneyrobotics) 3. [builtin.com/company/watney-robotics-inc](https://builtin.com/company/watney-robotics-inc) 4. [startups.gallery/companies/watney](https://startups.gallery/companies/watney) ## Other roles at Watney - [Program Manager, Teleoperations](https://feeny.ai/job/program-manager-teleoperations-watney-san-francisco-c0zedeb0sc5r) — San Francisco, CA - [Staff Program Manager, Teleoperations](https://feeny.ai/job/staff-program-manager-teleoperations-watney-san-francisco-w7qah1bzn6xd) — San Francisco, CA - [Manufacturing Engineer](https://feeny.ai/job/manufacturing-engineer-watney-san-francisco-my41btjba2q8) — San Francisco, CA - [Growth Marketing Manager](https://feeny.ai/job/growth-marketing-manager-watney-san-francisco-ek0hqtqhkcz3) — San Francisco, CA - [Business Operations Lead](https://feeny.ai/job/business-operations-lead-watney-san-francisco-9n7j7kpvkzpj) — San Francisco, CA - [Finance Manager](https://feeny.ai/job/finance-manager-watney-san-francisco-1f1kygnh0cag) — San Francisco, CA - [General Application](https://feeny.ai/job/general-application-watney-san-francisco-6nk2g8aqqjr4) — San Francisco, CA - [Engineering Program Manager - Robotics](https://feeny.ai/job/engineering-program-manager-robotics-watney-san-francisco-pw4pgcw5ttbz) — San Francisco, CA - [Robotics Technician](https://feeny.ai/job/robotics-technician-watney-san-francisco-a9smm1vdp9nt) — San Francisco, CA - [Technical Sourcer](https://feeny.ai/job/technical-sourcer-watney-san-francisco-69nx7ehb2msa) — San Francisco, CA