Hardware Product & Program Manager

Salient Systems • Austin, TX

8h

About The Position

Salient Systems is hiring a Hardware Product & Program Manager to own its recording-platform portfolio for CompleteView, including PowerProtect, based on Dell platforms, and Vantage, built with a contract manufacturer. The role begins primarily with hardware product management—roadmaps, configurations, performance and cost tradeoffs, lifecycle decisions, and validated product specifications—and is expected to grow over roughly two years into building a certified-manufacturer program. That program will enable qualified partners to build and sell Salient-certified platforms under license, supported by workable commercial terms and reporting.

The manager will guide the product roadmap and platform lifecycle, maintain a dependable product record, manage commercial decisions around cost, pricing, margin, forecasts, and inventory, and help establish partner qualification, certification, licensing, and royalty processes. The role works across Engineering, Product, Finance, Operations, Sales, Support, contract manufacturers, and OEM partners, including partner and manufacturing visits. It reports to the VP of Product.

A successful first year will include roadmaps for both product lines, usable lifecycle policies, a reliable path from validated specifications to customer-facing information, deliberate platform pricing and margin decisions, and a certified-manufacturer program with clearer qualification and commercial mechanics that is beginning to generate measurable royalty revenue. The role is not eligible for visa sponsorship. Candidates will be subject to a background check in accordance with federal and state regulations.

Requirements

• About five or more years managing networked or appliance-class hardware products, such as servers, recorders, or gateways, through launch, revision, and end of life.
• Firsthand accountability for platform cost, price, and margin, with judgment to make tradeoffs when financial and technical considerations conflict.
• Experience with product qualification, performance evidence, component substitutions, and lifecycle decisions.
• Experience working with OEMs, ODMs, or contract manufacturers, including specifications and build changes.
• Comfort with server architecture and storage, and ability to turn test results into product recommendations.
• Strong writing and communication skills to make roadmaps, policies, or business cases useful to executives and technical teams.
• Ability to work in a role that is not eligible for visa sponsorship.
• Willingness to undergo a background check in accordance with federal and state regulations.

Nice To Haves

• Experience building or running a partner, certification, licensing, or other commercially accountable program, or a strong track record demonstrating ability to take on that work.
• Video security experience.
• Familiarity with channel sales.
• Experience guiding a hardware portfolio through a structural change.

Responsibilities

• Own a rolling roadmap for PowerProtect and Vantage, including platform tiers, configurations, and decisions to add, consolidate, or retire SKUs.
• Work with Engineering to identify performance questions for testing, interpret results, and make product decisions balancing workload, reliability, availability, and margin.
• Establish policies for support windows, end-of-life notice, last-time buys, spares, and migration paths.
• Anticipate component and operating-system changes and communicate them to Sales, Support, OEM partners, and customers.
• Own validated specifications for shipping configurations and help develop a structured product source of truth.
• Keep datasheets, price books, quoting tools, website content, and sizing guidance aligned with validated product information.
• Manage BOM-cost targets, pricing structure, and margin by platform.
• Work with Finance and Operations on forecasts and inventory exposure, and respond to component cost or supply changes.
• Recruit and qualify certified-manufacturer partners; define certification requirements; shape licensing and royalty terms; and create auditable, workable reporting.
• Work with Engineering and Product on systems that support the certified-manufacturer program.
• Coordinate with contract manufacturers, OEM partners, Engineering, Operations, Sales, and Support, including visits with manufacturing and OEM partners.
• Provide clear information about the platforms and build systems that make product information easier to find.

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Mid Level
• Education Level: No Education Listed