Director of Product Management, Hardware

Apptronik•Austin, TX

5d•Onsite

About The Position

Apptronik is a human-centered robotics company developing AI-powered robots to support humanity in every facet of life. Our flagship humanoid robot, Apollo, is built to collaborate thoughtfully with people, starting with critical industries such as manufacturing and logistics, with future applications in healthcare, the home, and beyond. We operate at the cutting edge of embodied AI, applying our expertise across the full robotics stack to solve some of society's most important problems. You will join a team dedicated to bringing Apollo to market at scale, tackling the complex challenges like safety, commercialization, and mass production to change the world for the better.

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.

Nice To Haves

advanced degree or MBA helpful

Responsibilities

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.