Robotics Field Operations Lead - Construction at HITT Contracting Inc. in Falls Church, VA

Job description

• Every day, our team members do amazing things in pursuit of our shared purpose to build trust with our clients, partners, subcontractors, and teammates. No matter your background, education, or career path, if you share our vision to create extraordinary experiences, you belong at HITT.
• The Robotics Field Operations Lead is responsible for orchestrating the people, equipment, logistics, and processes behind robotics deployments on HITT’s jobsites. This role coordinates aerial data capture, ground-robotics missions, and robotic layout operations across a growing portfolio of projects. Serving as the operational hub between Project Teams, robotics technical leads, field engineers, vendors, and business partners, this individual will help transform successful pilot projects into scalable field capabilities.
• This team member reports to the Robotics Head of Operations and is part of HITT’s Robotics Team, which leads research and development, pilot programs, and full-time field deployments. The Robotics Team’s mission is to support our project teams, transform our industry, and bring robots to every jobsite.
• The ideal candidate is a highly organized field operations professional who thrives at the intersection of technology, construction, and operations. They anticipate challenges, communicate early, and bring discipline to everything from deployment schedules and equipment records to budgets and stakeholder relationships. They have a demonstrated ability to manage complex, multi-step workflows with many moving pieces while maintaining accuracy and follow-through across a large volume of concurrent tasks. They are energized by emerging technology, motivated to drive adoption, work quickly and accurately under pressure, and are comfortable learning beyond their existing expertise.
• We encourage strong candidates excited by this role to apply even if they do not match every technical qualification listed.

Responsibilities

• Field Deployment Coordination
• Own the coordination and execution of drone, ground-robotics, and robotic-layout deployments across a growing portfolio of projects.
• Confirm deployment requirements, site readiness, access restrictions, safety requirements, deliverables, required authorizations, and project contacts before mobilization.
• Coordinate field personnel, robotics equipment, logistics, and other deployment resources.
• Identify scheduling conflicts, resource constraints, and operational risks before they affect field activities.
• Monitor active deployments and respond quickly to quality issues, schedule changes, equipment issues, weather delays, or changing project conditions.
• Streamline and automate repetitive workflows using project management tools (e.g., Asana,), data analytics tools (e.g., Power BI), low/no-code platforms, and agentic AI to drive continuous improvements.
• Support development of scalable operating procedures, policies, playbooks, checklists, tutorials, and training materials.
• Develop systems for managing and maintaining a growing fleet of robots and supporting equipment.
• Project-Team and Customer Success
• Serve as a primary operational point of contact for project teams using robotics services.
• Ensure success of deployments via strong customer-success instincts, organizational skills, and meticulous attention to detail.
• Translate project needs into clearly defined deployment scopes, schedules, and deliverables.
• Onboard project teams, resolve service issues, and build trusted relationships with Superintendents, Project Managers, Virtual Construction teams, Trade Partners, and Vendors.
• Perform quality assurance by monitoring data quality, mission completion and coverage, performance metrics, and other deliverables.
• Monitor stakeholder satisfaction and coordinate the resolution of operational or service-related issues.
• Turn field feedback into actionable insights that will directly influence the robotics technical roadmap.
• Administrative and Financial Coordination
• Maintain accurate operational records for deployments, equipment, personnel qualifications, certifications, and insurance requirements.
• Ensure commercial drone operations comply with applicable FAA requirements.
• Manage quoting, budgets, forecasts, invoices, purchase orders, billing, expenses, and project cost allocations.
• Develop automated dashboards and KPIs for workload, utilization, adoption, cost, resource capacity, and deployment performance.
• Coordinate with Accounting, Safety, IT, Human Resources, and other business functions to maintain efficient, compliant operations.
• Adoption and Internal Business Development
• Introduce project teams to available robotics services and emerging capabilities.
• Support demonstrations, presentations, project pursuits, and internal awareness initiatives.
• Identify projects that would benefit from robotic services and connect them with the appropriate technical subject matter experts and resources.
• Champion robotics across the organization to move new technologies from experimentation to everyday field use.

Requirements

• Bachelor’s degree in Operations, Project Management, Construction Administration, Commercial Construction, Engineering, related field, or equivalent practical experience.
• 2-5 years of professional experience in operations-intensive roles such as project coordination, construction operations, customer success, field services, logistics, or a comparable role.
• Strong project-management skills, including scheduling, prioritization, risk tracking, documentation, and follow-through.
• Experience with budgeting, invoice reconciliation, purchase orders, expense tracking, or project cost accounting.
• Ability to operate effectively in a fast-moving environment where schedules and field conditions frequently change.
• Curiosity and capacity to learn about construction robotics and related technologies including aerial data capture, ground robotics, robotic layout, surveying, geospatial data, and GIS concepts relevant to high-quality data capture, mapping, and layout; prior exposure is helpful but not required.
• Ability to travel to construction sites and occasionally work outside standard business hours.
• Must be a self-starter, highly motivated, and able to work independently.
• Experience working for a general contractor, specialty contractor, construction-technology company, or field-service organization.
• Familiarity with construction operations, jobsite logistics, scheduling, and safety requirements.
• FAA Part 107 Remote Pilot Certificate and/or familiarity with commercial drone regulations.
• Experience coordinating drone operations, reality capture, surveying, robotic layout, mobile robotics, or related technologies.
• Experience managing equipment fleets or geographically distributed field resources.
• Familiarity with ERP, CRM, asset-management, and construction-management platforms such as Procore or Autodesk Construction Cloud.
• Experience developing dashboards, performance metrics, standard operating procedures, or scalable operational processes.
• Familiarity with BIM, VDC, reality-capture, construction-layout workflows, and the ability to read and interpret construction and shop drawings.

Skills

Required

• Highly organized
• Anticipates challenges
• Communicates early
• Brings discipline
• Customer-success instincts
• Meticulous attention to detail
• Self-starter
• Highly motivated
• Able to work independently
• Project management tools (e.g., Asana)
• Data analytics tools (e.g., Power BI)
• Low/no-code platforms

Benefits

• In accordance with Virginia Senate Bill 215 (SB 215), the base salary range for this position is:
• $82,000.00 - $150,000.00
• Compensation in other cities and states may vary. HITT Contracting offers a competitive total benefits and compensation package including performance-based bonuses, premium health care coverage including vision and dental, employer-matched 401(k), wellness reimbursement program, paid holidays and time-off, and other voluntary benefits and leave types. The determination of salary is based on the candidate’s individual professional experience, qualifications, education, skills, and training.