In this episode Zach Gelo sits down with Kyle Mahan, Chief Operating Officer at Lightspeed Robotics, to discuss his career, craft and his read on where the industry is heading.

Recorded at Automate 2026 in Chicago, Kyle explains the mobile factory Lightspeed is pushing into production: a robotic cell that arrives on site, takes the blueprint for a home and builds wall and roof panels with the mechanical, electrical and plumbing already inside them. There is no robot programming. A rule set adapts to the site, the crane and the local building code, then writes the robot file itself.

Kyle talks through how AI is changing the economics of engineering, what happens to a team when a 2,000 hour job becomes a 200 hour job, and why he thinks engineers will build stacks rather than write code. He also covers how he fell into automation after fixing a hydraulic test stand without permission, why culture beats raw talent, what private equity is really buying when it acquires an integrator, and where the hardest roles to fill actually sit.

Kyle was COO of Lightspeed Robotics at the time of recording and is now at Wes-Tech Automation Solutions.

Voices of Automation is part of the Metric Podcast Network.