Director of Product Management, Hardware

JOB SUMMARY

The Head of Product Management, Hardware leads product management for all of Apptronik's hardware systems, including robots, peripherals, and components. You own the hardware product vision, partnering closely with engineering and manufacturing leadership to develop and execute the hardware roadmap. You build and lead a team of product managers who translate market demands and customer use cases into executable roadmaps. You are accountable for hardware products across their full lifecycle, from concept and new product introduction through production, sustaining, and end-of-life.

ESSENTIAL DUTIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES or KEY ACCOUNTABILITIES

• Build, lead, and develop the hardware product management team: hire, level, coach, and set the standards for how hardware products are managed.
• Partner with engineering leadership developing and maintaining the hardware roadmap: scope, sequencing, and priorities across robots, peripherals, and components.
• Own hardware product strategy, assuring engineering deliverables create a coherent portfolio, managing reuse, variants, and configuration strategy
• Establish roadmap governance, prioritization frameworks, and metrics discipline across the team, holding product managers accountable to customer-connected, outcome-driven roadmaps.
• Drive the Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) strategy, balancing unit COGS with field reliability, serviceability, and maintenance costs to maximize customer ROI.
• Define and track portfolio-level product and program health metrics, and represent hardware product status in executive reviews.
• Drive the full new product introduction (NPI) lifecycle with hardware engineering and operations, from prototype through mass production, owning gate criteria and product go/no-go decisions.
• Own the hardware product lifecycle beyond launch: sustaining, continuous improvement, field-issue resolution, spares, and end-of-life planning for a deployed fleet.
• Drive make-versus-buy decisions across systems and components, weighing cost, lead time, risk, IP, and supply continuity.
• Lead vendor and manufacturing engagement at the product level, working with suppliers, contract manufacturers, and internal manufacturing teams on requirements, feasibility, cost, quality, and supply.
• Own product cost: BOM and COGS targets and the sourcing and inventory trade-offs behind them, ensuring competitive unit economics.
• Align with software product leadership across the hardware/software divide so systems are defined, sequenced, and integrated coherently.
• Partner with safety, quality, and compliance teams to ensure products meet applicable standards and that failure modes and field risks are addressed.

SKILLS AND REQUIREMENTS

• Proven track record building and leading product management teams 
• Deep hardware product and NPI fluency: taking complex hardware from concept through end of life, including design for manufacturability, reliability and validation, and cost/BOM management.
• Experience with autonomous robots or similar complex electromechanical systems enabling fluency at the hardware/software co-development boundary.
• Hands-on experience working with vendors, suppliers, contract manufacturers, and internal manufacturing teams.
• A keen eye for make-versus-buy decisions across systems and components.
• Strong analytical skills with metrics discipline for performance tracking and data-driven decision-making.
• Excellent verbal and written communication, translating technical insight into business impact for engineering and executive audiences.

EDUCATION and/or EXPERIENCE

• Bachelor's degree (or equivalent) in mechanical, electrical, systems, or robotics engineering, or a related field; advanced degree or MBA helpful.
• At least 10 years of experience in product management or engineering, including 5+ years leading product managers, with a track record of shipping complex hardware products.

PHYSICAL REQUIREMENTS

• Prolonged periods of sitting at a desk and working on a computer.
• Ability to spend time on lab and manufacturing floors, and to travel to supplier and manufacturing sites as needed.
• Must be able to lift 15 pounds at times.
• Vision to read printed materials and a computer screen; hearing and speech to communicate.