Co-Founder & Industry Lead - Industrial Automation

Salary NOK 350 - NOK 500 per hour

Equity To be negotiated

Help build RoboConnect into the independent starting point for industrial companies considering automation — combining industrial expertise, customer development and commercial judgement.

Location: Molde, Norway - in-person collaboration several days per week

Initial phase: One-month paid mutual assessment period

Long-term intention: Full-time co-founder and long-term industrial and commercial partner

About RoboConnect

Many industrial companies want to automate, but the early pre-investment phase is often slow, fragmented and difficult to navigate. Companies may be unsure what should be automated, whether the process is ready, what information is missing and which partners they should involve. This can delay projects and increase the risk of costly mistakes.

RoboConnect helps industrial companies move faster from an unclear automation need to a structured and decision-relevant basis for internal decisions and supplier dialogue. We combine industrial automation expertise with an AI-supported workflow for needs clarification, project preparation, expert review and matching.

Our goal is to help companies, especially SMEs, get started faster, reduce uncertainty and make better investment decisions — while giving system integrators and other automation partners a better-qualified starting point.

Our first specialised area is welding automation in high-mix, low-volume manufacturing. We are currently preparing customer pilots and commercial launch in Norway, with Sweden as the first intended scale-up market.

Why we need this co-founder

RoboConnect was founded by Elisabet Witsø, who brings a multidisciplinary background in research, data analysis, complex problem-solving, digital product development and AI.

We are now looking for a complementary co-founder with deep practical experience from industrial automation, robotics or system integration. You will strengthen RoboConnect’s industrial credibility and help ensure that customer dialogue, project assessments, matching and product development are grounded in real automation experience. This is an active founder role, not an occasional advisory position.

What you will do

understand customer processes, bottlenecks and automation needs
identify and develop pilot customers through direct outreach, meetings and structured follow-up
review AI-supported project briefs for realism, risks, missing information and readiness for supplier dialogue
help identify and evaluate relevant system integrators, technology suppliers and R&D partners
contribute to RoboConnect’s AI Advisor, service offering, positioning, pricing and commercial model
build relationships across the automation ecosystem and support later expansion into Sweden and the wider Nordic market

Who we are looking for

This is a co-founder role with broader responsibility than a traditional engineering or technical sales position. You will combine industrial automation expertise with customer development, commercial judgement and company-building.

You must have:

several years of practical experience from industrial automation, robotics, system integration or automation projects in manufacturing
experience from real automation projects and the ability to understand and challenge production and automation cases
the credibility to communicate with production managers, operators, engineers, system integrators and commercial decision-makers
a strong customer orientation and willingness to take direct responsibility for customer contact, sales and follow-up
commercial judgement and a genuine interest in building a business, not only delivering technical expertise
the initiative, independence and resilience needed to build an early-stage company with limited resources and uncertainty

You must be able to communicate effectively with Norwegian industrial customers. Norwegian or another Scandinavian language is strongly preferred. Candidates with excellent English may also be considered if they are willing to learn Norwegian and can demonstrate how they would build trusted customer relationships in Norway.

A formal sales title is not required. However, you must be comfortable proactively contacting potential customers, conducting meetings, asking for the next step and helping turn opportunities into real projects.

Strong advantages include:

experience from technical sales, pre-sales, business development, commercial project development or other customer-facing automation roles
welding automation or high-mix, low-volume manufacturing
experience with ROI assessments, investment cases or automation readiness
experience evaluating or selecting system integrators and technology suppliers
an established industrial network in Norway or Sweden

Independence, location and founder fit

RoboConnect must remain independent. Matching should be based on documented customer needs and clear criteria, not personal preferences or existing supplier relationships. RoboConnect is based in Molde and connected to Protomore Innovation Lab. Some home-office flexibility is possible, but the founders must be able to collaborate in person several days per week.

Compensation and ownership

The collaboration will begin with a one-month paid mutual assessment period. The published hourly salary range applies only to this period. Workload, compensation and objectives will be agreed before starting.

RoboConnect is a pre-revenue startup and cannot currently guarantee a market-rate salary after the initial month. Any continued paid arrangement will depend on revenue, funding and board approval. If the collaboration continues, the intention is to establish a long-term co-founder relationship with an ownership arrangement based on responsibilities, commitment, risk and agreed vesting terms.

For more information or questions please contact us at hei@roboconnect.no or phone number +47 99 79 12 99

Perks and benefits

This job comes with several perks and benefits

Social gatherings

Flexible working hours

Work life balance

Working at
RoboConnect

See company profile

1. Short description RoboConnect is developing an independent, AI-supported platform that helps industrial companies turn tacit and fragmented process knowledge into a clear, decision-relevant automation case — before supplier dialogue begins. 2. The problem Many industrial companies know they need to automate, but struggle to define what should be automated, what is causing the problem and whether the process is ready for investment. The people closest to production often understand the process well, but this knowledge may be spread across operators, engineers and management, poorly documented or mixed with assumptions and missing data. The customer may therefore approach the market with an unclear problem description and incomplete information. System integrators then have to reconstruct the customer’s process understanding and collect missing data before a meaningful solution dialogue can begin. This creates uncertainty, longer clarification phases, weak or difficult-to-compare proposals and projects that stall early. The core problem is not a lack of technology or suppliers. It is that the knowledge needed to make a good early automation decision is often tacit, fragmented and difficult to transfer. 3. The solution RoboConnect starts by understanding the customer’s process, challenges and actual needs. The RoboConnect AI Advisor conducts a guided professional conversation that helps the company describe how production works today, what it wants to improve, which constraints matter and what information is still missing. The AI Advisor brings together information from different parts of the organisation, separates facts from assumptions and uncertainty, identifies knowledge gaps and risks, and turns unclear issues into practical next actions. The result is a shared and structured automation basis that can be developed into a supplier-ready project brief. Relevant projects can then be connected with suitable system integrators, technology suppliers and R&D environments. This gives the customer greater decision confidence and solution providers a better starting point. RoboConnect is not building a generic chatbot. The platform combines a domain-specific workflow, structured project data and knowledge from industrial cases, expert interviews and feedback from customers and automation partners. Over time, this strengthens clarification, project maturation and matching. The first focused area is welding automation and high-mix, low-volume manufacturing. The longer-term ambition is to expand across other automation categories and build a Nordic platform for early-stage automation clarification and matching. 4. Business model and commercial opportunity RoboConnect creates value on both sides of the market. Industrial companies receive a clearer and safer starting point, while automation partners gain access to better-qualified customer opportunities. The current model is based mainly on supplier-side revenue through fees for qualified matches and successful projects. Future revenue streams may include paid AI-assisted readiness reports, supplier subscriptions, premium access and category-specific products. The model is now being validated through pilots and early customer projects. Norway is the validation market, with Sweden as the first intended scale-up market. 5. Why I started RoboConnect The motivation came from repeated conversations with industrial companies, automation experts and system integrators. I saw that many projects became uncertain long before technology was selected. Companies needed a more independent and structured way to understand their own situation before entering a supplier-led process. With a background in research, data analysis and complex problem structuring, combined with further training in programming, databases and AI, I founded RoboConnect to bridge the gap between industrial process knowledge and automation delivery.