Technology Sourcing and Partnership Lead

About CynLr

Just like a baby's brain, CynLr Visual Intelligence stack makes Robots to instinctively see & pick any object under any ambience, without any training. (a demo video link).

Today, there does not exist a robot that can fit a screw into a nut without slipping a thread. Imagine what it would take for a robot to assemble a Smartphone or a car by putting together 1000s of parts with varied shapes and weights, all in random orientations. Thus, factories become complex, needing heavy customization of their environment.

CynLr enabled visual robots intuitively learn to handle even unknown objects on-the-fly thus eliminating the need for customization and therefore are a universal alternative to custom machines. CynLr's vision is simplifying factory lines into modular LEGO blocks of micro-factories.

Simplifying factories with robots that can pick & place any object has been a 40-year-old pipe dream - touted as The Holy Grail of Robotics.

About The Role:

At the core of CynLr lies a fundamentally new approach to machine vision. Unlike conventional vision systems that rely on image recognition and heuristics, CynLr s Vision and ML stacks are deeply inspired by neuroscience, modelling how biological vision understands shape, geometry, and interaction rather than appearance alone. To support this, CynLr builds its hardware, sensors, compute pipelines, and learning stacks from scratch, tightly coupling perception, decision-making, and action.

This integration allows CynLr to operate in conditions that defeat traditional automation: variable lighting, cluttered environments, unknown objects, and high precision manipulation, unlocking automation use cases that have remained unsolved for decades. By rethinking vision as an intelligent, adaptive sense rather than a static tool, CynLr is redefining how robots perceive, reason, and interact with the physical world.

Technology sourcing at CynLr is not procurement. It is a decision-making role that sits upstream of supply chain execution. As the Technology Sourcing & Partnerships Lead, you will work closely with founders and engineering teams to:

Understand why something needs to be built or bought

Evaluate what technology choices best serve the function

Decide who to partner with and how deeply

Convert sourcing conversations into long-term technical partnerships, not transactions

This role requires product thinking, engineering empathy, and commercial judgment.

Key Responsibilities:

1. Technology Discovery & Evaluation

• Work closely with engineering and product teams to understand functional requirements, constraints, and intent before sourcing.
• Evaluate technologies across domains such as: Compute (IPC, edge devices, GPUs, SoCs), Sensors, optics, cameras, Electronics, boards, and sub-assemblies
• Ask first principal questions such as A. Do we need to buy this B. Can we simplify, reuse, redesign, or defer C. What breaks if this choice is wrong

2. Vendor & Partner Identification

• Identify and onboard technology vendors, OEMs, ODMs, and solution partners globally.
• Distinguish between Commodity vendors vs strategic partners, Exposure vs proven experience, Marketing claims vs engineering reality.
• Build a short-list of vendors based on: Capability fit, Roadmap alignment, Long-term support and lifecycle, Willingness to co-develop or customize

3. Partnership Development & Management

• Convert vendor relationships into technology partnerships, where applicable.
• Negotiate beyond unit price covering: Engineering support, Customization, Roadmap influence, Long-term pricing and lifecycle commitments
• Act as the single owner for technology partner relationships, ensuring continuity and accountability.

4. Decision-Making & Trade-Off Analysis

• Lead technology trade-off discussions involving cost, performance, reliability, scalability, and risk.
• Build and articulate decision frameworks such as Total Cost of Ownership (TCO), Lifecycle risk, Dependency and lock-in risk, Time-to-market vs long-term flexibility.
• Make recommendations under uncertainty and incomplete data, clearly stating assumptions and risks.

5. Cross-Functional Alignment

• Act as the bridge between: Engineering Supply Chain, Product Vendors, Founders External partners
• Validate internal customer requirements (engineering, product) before committing to vendors.
• Ensure sourcing decisions are execution-ready for supply chain and operations teams

6. Documentation & Knowledge Building

• Document sourcing rationale, decision criteria, and vendor evaluations.
• Build internal knowledge bases for Approved technologies, Vendor capabilities, Past decisions and learnings
• Ensure continuity as the organization scales.

Team Structure:

The Operations team functions as a cross-functional enablement layer that supports Engineering, Product, and Business teams in executing reliably and at scale. The team spans Technology Sourcing, Supply Chain, Logistics, Procurement, Finance Operations, and Program Coordination, working closely together rather than in silos.

Technology Sourcing sits upstream of execution, working closely with Engineering and Product to understand functional intent before decisions move into procurement and logistics. It provides the technical and partnership context that enables the rest of Operations to execute with clarity ensuring sourcing choices are deliberate, scalable, and aligned to long-term system and business needs.

Each team member owns a primary responsibility while contributing context and continuity across adjacent workflows, enabling CynLr to move fast without losing control.

What Will You Need to Do This Well:

• End-to-end hardware supply chain fundamentals in a startup environment: sourcing, procurement, logistics, inventory, and vendor coordination under low volumes and frequent design changes.
• Strong product and systems thinking
• Ability to understand engineering intent without being an engineer for every domain
• Comfort operating in ambiguity and early-stage environments
• High judgment and prioritization ability
• Strong communication - able to explain why a decision was made
• Willingness to challenge assumptions (internal and external)

Experience That Will Accelerate You:

• Experience in technology sourcing, hardware product development, or engineering operations
• Exposure to startups, R&D-heavy environments, or hardware companies
• Experience working with OEMs, ODMs, or technology partners
• Prior roles that required trade-offs, not just execution
• Global vendor or partner exposure

What Will You Do

You will translate CynLr's engineering intent into executable supply-chain reality.

You will own technology decisions upstream, before they become supply chain problems.

You will:

• Prevent bad buys
• Reduce long-term technical debt
• Improve engineering velocity
• Build durable external partnerships
• Enable founders and engineers to focus on innovation, not firefighting

Who This Role Is For

This role is for someone who enjoys figuring out why something needs to be built or bought before deciding how to source it. You are comfortable operating in ambiguity, asking uncomfortable questions, and making decisions with incomplete information. You think in terms of function, trade-offs, and long-term impact, not just cost or process. You enjoy working closely with engineers, founders, and external partners, and you are motivated by ownership and judgment, not by predefined tasks or templates.

Detailed JD Here: Technology Sourcing & Partnership