Chief Technology Officer

OWNS

The technical outcome of NIX ANGELS: the line, the roadmap, the technical team, the technical budget, and the credibility of our technical claims in front of investors and funding bodies.

REPORTS TO

CEO / Founder. Peer to COO and Head of Design. Member of the leadership team.

TEAM

3-5 full-time engineers.

WHO WE ARE

NIX is working towards a fully automated clothing production line in Europe. We’re starting with the simplest, most challenging product: a cotton jersey T-shirt. By the end of April 2027, our production line is expected to produce 5–10 shirts per day, with fewer than two manual interventions per shirt. A key problem with our production line remains unsolved: holding, stretching, and securing fabric that sags while a machine sews.

If that sounds like the most interesting problem in manufacturing and robotics, it is probably exactly the right one for you.

WHAT YOU ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR

1. The production line and the roadmap. The milestones are set against one target: a proof of concept by April 2027, 5–10 shirts per day. The roadmap states milestones, blockers and gates. We want you to challenge every aspect of it — and to build the line against those targets.

2. Digital Transformation: Drive Industry 4.0 initiatives like IoT, AI-driven predictive maintenance, and automation on the factory floor.

3. The technical team: hiring, leading, developing. You set the standard and you protect the focus.

4. Design for automation: negotiating with Product and Design which garment features stay, which ones change, and what a future style must respect to be machine-makeable.

5. Suppliers and partners: finding them, qualifying them, negotiating. Supplier acquisition is a core skill here.

6. Finance: technical budget, cost breakdowns, CapEx versus OpEx, and estimates that survive being challenged. You build and defend the technical part of our funding case.

7. Investors and public funding: technical due diligence, and the technical substance behind the grant applications our advisor is writing.

8. Machine safety and CE: you own the risk assessments and the conformity of what we build, with external safety engineering support.

9. IP: what we protect, what we publish, what we deliberately leave open.

10. Research partnerships with universities and institutes — scoped, time-boxed, with a specific research question under investigation.

WHAT YOU MUST BRING

TEXTILES AND MATERIALS

Knowledge of textile technology, garment manufacturing and material behaviour. Without it, show us that you learn a new material domain extremely fast — and how you did that before. Ideally B.Eng./ M.Eng/M.Sc. in Textile Engineering /Mechanical Engineering /Robotics Engineering

SYSTEMS THINKING

You see the line as one system. You can explain why a decision at the cutting table shows up as a defect at the hem — and you can put a number on it.

HANDS-ON ENGINEERING

Automation, mechanical engineering and robotics, from your own hands. You will be in the workshop, at the machine, with fabric in your hands.

SPEED WITH A STEADY HAND

High cadence, quick decisions, 80 % information is enough to act. And at the same time calm — because a team that is rushed stops iterating and starts hiding problems. Urgency without panic.

BIAS TO ACTION

You would rather build a rough prototype this week than write a specification.

COMFORT WITH UNCERTAINTY

A core problem of our line is unsolved. You must be able to work, decide and lead a team without knowing whether it will work — and to stop a line of work honestly when the evidence says stop.

LEADERSHIP WITH EMPATHY

Proven experience leading engineers. People stay and grow under you. You give direct feedback and help them grow.

MONEY LITERACY

Budgeting, cost models, estimate quality, runway awareness. You know what your decisions cost per month.

LANGUAGES

German and English, both negotiating levels. The team is international; our suppliers and machine builders are largely German-speaking.

PRESENCE

Berlin, on site. This is a hardware company — the work happens at the machine. We do not run this role remotely.

THIS ROLE IS NOT FOR YOU IF

• You want to lead technology from a laptop. The line is physical and so is this job.

• You need consensus before you move.

• You want certainty about the outcome. Nobody can give it to us, including you.

WHAT WE OFFER

• True decision-making autonomy in your area, including the freedom to make mistakes.

• A budget for tools and materials so the work can be done properly.

• Short lines of communication, direct contact with the founder and industry partners.

• Full support and a proper hand-over from the current CTO.

SELECTION PROCESS FOR THIS ROLE

1. Screening call, 30 minutes: your credentials, our challenge, our expectations.

2. A case study in our workshop: you see the real state, talk to the team, and work through the cost model and the roadmap with us.

3. References from engineers who reported to you, and from people you reported to.

4. Dinner with the team and the founder.

5. Decision within one week after the workshop day.

Submit your application with everything that shows what you have built: photos, drawings, a repository, logs. We don’t need a cover letter. Three sentences on why this problem interests you are worth more. Without proof of what you have built, we will not review the application.

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