Head Of Hardware Jobs

Director/VP, Hardware

Our Client, Skylight Frame, is hiring a talent Director/Vp of Hardware.

Skylight is a technology startup based out of Los Angeles and San Francisco. Their mission is to connect loved ones by creating the world’s simplest products and services that improve family life. Skylight makes consumer products, like Skylight Frame and Skylight Calendar, that are loved by millions of people across the globe. Skylight's founders are former venture capitalists and serial entrepreneurs, who have scaled this business to $75M+ in annual revenue while being completely bootstrapped. Skylight thinks often about the thousands of smiles they are able to put on customers’ faces each day, and it fills their hearts with purpose. That’s why Skylight has been working hard to expand their team and invent, so that they can continue to bring the magic of Skylight to millions of loved ones throughout the world.

Skylight has three core principles that guide their work and help them to manage the business day to day: autonomy, rigor, and care. These principles show up early and often and help guide the work they do and the way they work.

Skylight is hiring a talented hardware leader to manage the manufacturing operations from end to end. This individual will oversee Skylight's contract manufacturers to bring new product ideas into the real world, partner with the customer insights and product teams to improve existing products, and optimize and cost-down Skylight's existing products. This is a great opportunity for an experienced and entrepreneurial supply chain leader to build on existing infrastructure to support Skylight's product expansion. This individual will report to Skylight’s COO and while this role is an Individual Contributor, the Director/Vp of Hardware will manage multiple vendors, service providers, and consultants. Skylight is currently manufacture 600K+ devices per year across 6 products with plans to add 3-4 more products in the next year.

Responsibilities:

• Own the relationship with Skylight's contract manufacturer, and lead strategic discussions and
• Own the development, launch and production of new hardware products, overseeing all steps of the process and working closely with product/design/overseas contract manufacturers.
• Travel to visit our contract manufacturer in Asia 2-3x per year.
• Work with hardware and rmware engineers to ensure we are producing top quality devices
• Initiate and oversee partnerships with new contract manufacturers.
• Oversee a quality control program at Skylight's CMs and some of their subcontractors, with an emphasis on vetting any changes occurring due to changing market conditions.
• Develop contingency plans for component supply or manufacturing disruptions.
• Work to optimize BOM pricing, component sourcing, and lead times given rapidly changing market conditions.
• Negotiations.

What you’ve done:

• Built and launched one or more wi connected consumer products o Led cross-functional teams and owned a product launch end to end.
• Experienced in building products for both ecommerce and brick and mortar retail globally, familiarity with regulatory requirements a must.
• Track record of reducing BOM costs.
• At least 5 years of experience turning ideas into physical products
• At least 5 years of experience managing supply chains and multiple vendors.
• Built supply chains resilient to geopolitical and business shocks
• Managed and negotiated terms with vendors.
• Scaled supply chains to support multimillion dollar product lines.

Who you are:

• Big picture thinker with an eye for details: you are just as good at spotting and fixing engineering process inefficiences as you are thinking about downstream business and customer impacts.
• An excellent project manager with a love of turning complicated, multi-stakeholder projects
• Experienced in managing strategic relationships with CMs in China.
• Entrepreneurial with the ability to bring new products to launch on small budgets, quick
• Into clear plans.
• Quick to act: you’d rather try and fail than do nothing at all.
• Timelines, and limited oversight.
• Lived in (or traveled frequently) to China, with an established network in consumer electronics.
• Thrive when able to operate highly autonomously.
• Experienced in component sourcing, optimizing BOM pricing, etc.
• Nice to have (but not required): a mechanical or electrical engineering background and Mandarin fluency (required).

This role can be remote, but preference will be for candidates based out of Los Angeles or San Francisco.

Benefits:

Skylight's competitive compensation package includes:

• Wellness, learning, and home-office budgets
• Tremendous autonomy to set the direction of your work
• 401K matching
• Health, Dental & Vision Medical Plans
• Competitive Salary + Equity Package
• Unlimited PTO
• Company holidays on the first Friday of every month