Director of AI Products (f/m/d)

Our Mission

At Circus (Xetra: CA1), headquartered in Munich, we are pioneering global developments in on-demand autonomous food production. Everything from creation to production and operation – enabled by seamlessly integrated cutting-edge robotics and transformative AI technology.

Our foundation rests in the extensive developments of groundbreaking robotics driven by artificial intelligence, previously the missing link in achieving true autonomous food automation. This is the moment for a new status quo: Just as autonomous driving will disrupt how we build cities, organize our days, and live our lives, so will we shift our whole reality around food.

Our Team is backing a paradigm shift in one of humanity's most important sectors with the sharpest minds in Robotics, AI, Engineering and Culinary, collaborating closely with industry-leading partners to revolutionize every aspect of the food service experience.

Join us as we forge ahead, crafting a future where the art of cooking and the science of technology converge to create a world that thinks differently about food than it has for thousands of years—a world where food means something new.

About the Role

As Director of AI Products, you will own Circus’s entire AI product portfolio and lead the team building it — agentic systems, computer vision, edge AI, wearable AI, and the entire intelligence layer across our products.

This is one of the few roles in Europe where Physical AI is already in production, not on a roadmap. You’ll spot opportunities before they’re obvious, build the business case, and drive them from first prototype to revenue. You’re not here to manage a roadmap someone else defined. You see potential where others see noise, you’re willing to be wrong fast, and you know how to turn a technical edge into a commercial product.

You’ll work directly with our Management team and alongside our strategic technology partners like Meta and NVIDIA.

Your Daily Business

• Own the AI product portfolio end-to-end — agentic intelligence systems, Visual Intelligence (computer vision), Operator AI (wearable/edge), and CircusOS integrations across retail, hospitality, and defence deployments
• Identify and build the business case for new AI opportunities — internal tooling, external SaaS, strategic partnerships.
• Lead the AI team — engineers and specialists across vision, voice, and agentic AI; set direction, run 1:1s, and keep the bar high
• Push the frontier in production — deploy AI in environments where latency, reliability, and data security actually matter; this isn’t just a lab, it’s live
• Drive external AI revenue — productize our Visual Intelligence and agentic AI stack as enterprise SaaS solutions; own the arc from technical proof to signed deal
• Be the filter on what gets built — evaluate emerging AI tech (VLMs, multimodal models, new agentic frameworks) and turn signal into decisions
• Manage strategic technology partnerships — be the day-to-day product counterpart for our key tech partners, turning early access and co-development into shipped product

Base Qualifications

• Entrepreneurial mindset — you’ve founded something, led a product from scratch, or operated with real ownership in a small team; comfortable with ambiguity and not afraid to fail
• Technical foundation — you understand how AI applications are built and can work credibly with engineers; having shipped software yourself is a plus
• Experience building AI applications — whether as a founder, engineer, or product lead — and an instinct for what’s ready for production vs. what isn’t
• The ability to spot a market opportunity, size it quickly, and build a business case that gets buy-in
• A genuine pulse on the AI landscape — LLMs, vision models, edge inference, agentic frameworks — and strong opinions on where things are going
• Fluent English; German is a plus

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience at a frontier AI lab, big tech AI division, or a high-growth AI startup
• Background in computer vision, physical AI, or robotics-adjacent products
• Experience commercialising AI Solutions to enterprise buyers
• Existing relationships & network in the European or US AI ecosystem
• Exposure to dual-use or defence technology environments

Our Offer

• Equity with real upside: Stock options in a publicly listed company with an active M&A strategy and international growth trajectory — structured for those who think like owners.
• Work-Life Balance: Regular team events, hybrid work setup, 2 months/year remote work (Worcation), unlimited vacation days, and a corporate pension plan
• Personal Development: Personal budget for training, in-house trainings, and growth opportunities in a fast-paced environment
• Mobility: Monthly budget for mobility or other expenses, and a subsidized mobility subscription for E-Bike/E-Moped
• Well-Being: Discounted Urban Sports Club membership and Wellhub for a variety of well-being offerings