Hardware Development Project Manager

About the Role

We are a growing consumer electronics SME delivering wearables, smart home devices, and networking products. We are looking for a hands-on and resourceful Hardware Development Project Manager to guide products from concept to mass production in a lean environment, without relying on a large PMOstructure.

The right person will be comfortable with schedules, cost models, technical details, supplier discussions, and senior stakeholder updates. They should be a strong active listener who can take complex technical input and turn it into clear actions, decisions, and practical business updates.

This role suits someone with calm confidence: able to make decisions, challenge assumptions, and hold people accountable, while remaining self-aware, collaborative, and respectful of technical expertise.

Key Responsibilities & Deliverables

Project ownership and delivery:

· Own end-to-end hardware development schedules across multiple product lines, from concept through EVT,DVT, PVT, and MP.

· Drive stage-gate discipline with clear actions, owners, due dates, decision logs, and current master trackers accessible to the full team.

· Make timely, data-grounded decisions based on available information, while being willing to revisit decisions when new information justifies a change.

· Coordinate mechanical, PCB, firmware, mobile app, supply chain, manufacturing, and quality workstreams across geographies and time zones.

Communication and meeting rhythm:

· Design and manage a practical communication cadence covering weekly cross-functional meetings, milestone reviews, supplier calls, leadership updates, and structured asynchronous follow-ups.

· Run purposeful meetings with clear agendas, preparation expectations, time control, focused discussion, explicit decisions, owners, deadlines, and concise notes issued within 24hours.

· Know when not to meet: resolve straightforward issues asynchronously, reduce unnecessary recurring meetings, and protect the team's focus time.

· Translate technical complexity into plain language for non-technical founders and senior stakeholders, including concise PowerPoint updates showing key risks, decisions, and recommendations.

Listening, alignment, and stakeholder management:

· Actively listen in cross-functional discussions, identify misalignment early, ensure the right voices are heard, and distil engineering, supply chain, factory, and leadership inputs into clear next steps.

· Represent the project with quiet confidence to founders, senior leadership, suppliers, ODM/OEM partners, contract manufacturers, certification labs, and other external stakeholders.

· Follow up with suppliers and partners firmly and professionally when commitments, deadlines, or deliverables are missed, while preserving working relationships.

Documentation, cost, quality, and risk control:

· Own the SharePoint project environment, including schedules, BOMs, ECO logs, risk registers, certification trackers, decision records, naming conventions, and version control.

· Build and maintain cost models covering BOM, tooling, NRE, landed cost per unit, tooling amortisation, assembly, freight, duties, and warranty reserves.

· Track and report metrics such as schedule variance, defect rates, yield rates, ECO frequency, DPPM, first-pass yield, AQL sampling, cost-to-complete, and quantified cost/schedule impacts.

· Manage regulatory certification timelines proactively, including FCC, CE, RoHS, SRRC, MIC, and related RF certification schedule risks.

· Lead factory readiness reviews, oversee initial production ramp, own yield and quality data during PVT an dearly MP, and maintain a living risk register with impact and probability scoring.

Required Skills & Capabilities

Technical:

· Solid understanding of hardware development for wireless connected devices, including Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, Zigbee,LTE/5G, and systems-level connectivity stacks such as Wi-Fi 6/6E/7, BluetoothLE, Thread, and Matter.

· Familiarity with wearable-specific constraints, including miniaturisation, battery life, FSR/touch input, biometric sensors, IP ratings, and product reliability expectations.

· Working knowledge of RF certification processes, including FCC, CE, SRRC, and related schedule impacts.

· Comfortable reviewing PCB layouts, mechanical drawings, and BOMs, and able to ask the right technical and commercial questions.

· Experience managing firmware and mobile app integration dependencies, with an understanding of DFM/DFA and SMT manufacturing principles.

Project management:

· Able to manage lean, efficient project tracking without depending on enterprise PMO tools.

· Comfortable managing multiple concurrent product lines with limited resources.

· Strong cost awareness in an SME environment, including NRE, tooling, unit economics, budget risks, ECO discipline, and change management.

Numeracy and data:

· Strong numerical literacy across cost models, yield data, production metrics, financial summaries, supplier scorecards, schedule variance, defect data, and cost-to-complete reporting.

· Proficient in Excel and able to build cost trackers, schedule dashboards, BOM roll-ups, data models, landed cost models, and financial-risk summaries from scratch.

· Able to interpret factory and quality reports, including DPPM, Cpk, first-pass yield, AQL sampling results, averages, variance, trends, and anomalies.

Core business tools:

· Microsoft Excel: pivot tables, VLOOKUP/XLOOKUP, conditional formatting, structured trackers, dashboards, and self-sufficient data handling.

· Microsoft PowerPoint: clean, well-structured decks that communicate the essential points without burying the message in detail.

· Microsoft SharePoint: logical document libraries, folder structures, naming conventions, version control, and a single source of truth for distributed teams.

· Microsoft Teams: day-to-day communication, asynchronous updates, file sharing, and remote meetings across time zones.

Meeting management:

· Runs meetings only when needed, with a clear purpose, tight agenda, defined outcome, and preparation expectations shared in advance.

· Facilitates with calm authority: manages time, prevents rabbit holes, redirects off-topic discussion, challenges unsubstantiated positions, and ensures the right people contribute.

· Closes meetings with explicit decisions, named owners, deadlines, and concise notes issued within 24 hours.

· Manages remote, hybrid, milestone, supplier escalation, and executive meetings with composure.

· Protects the team's deep worktime by challenging unnecessary recurring meetings and resolving simple issues asynchronously.

Active listening and information synthesis:

· Exceptional active listening: absorbs what is said and meant, asks clarifying questions, confirms understanding, and pushes back on vague answers without being confrontational.

· Able to process large volumes of overlapping information across multiple product lines and synthesise inputs from meetings, emails, and documents into a coherent project picture.

· Distils dense, technical, or ambiguous information into clear, structured, concise outputs for engineers, factory managers, founders, and senior stakeholders.

· Strong written clarity and pattern recognition, with meeting notes, status updates, action logs, recurring risks, miscommunications, and emerging themes captured early and usefully.

Organisation and structured working:

· Exceptionally organised by default, with a personal task management system that captures commitments, open items, follow-ups, and priorities.

· Applies repeatable structure to schedules, trackers, logs, reports, version control, naming conventions, and file hygiene, so there is no ambiguity about the current source of truth.

· Proactive rather than reactive: anticipates information needs, prepares in advance, manages time rigorously, brings order to ambiguity, and balances detail with the big picture.

Dispersed team and cross-time zone management:

· Proven ability to manage geographically dispersed teams and external partners across multiple time zones, with strong asynchronous communication and decision-log discipline.

· Designs time zone-conscious meeting schedules, rotates inconvenient slots where needed, minimises unnecessary live meetings, and is comfortable with routine early-morning or late-evening calls.

· Culturally aware and experienced with Asian ODM/CM partners, including factory communication cadences, relationship dynamics, and regional working-style differences.

Confidence and interpersonal style:

· Quietly self-confident: grounded, prepared, assured, and able to hold a room without needing to dominate it.

· Decisive without being dogmatic; assertive without being aggressive; able to challenge assumptions, deliver difficult messages, escalate risks, and preserve professional relationships.

· Self-aware and collaborative: comfortable with pushback, does not become defensive, says "I do not know- let me find out" when appropriate, and knows when to lean on others' expertise.

· Earns trust through consistency, reliable follow-through, clear communication, sound judgement, autonomy, entrepreneurial problem solving, and outcomes rather than personal visibility.

· Comfortable with ambiguity and shifting priorities; highly autonomous in a lean SME environment without needing a large team or formal PMO structure.

Experience Requirements

· 5-7 years of hardware development project management experience in consumer electronics.

· Hands-on experience with at least two of the following: wearables, smart home/IoT devices, or networking/router products.

· Proven experience managing dispersed teams, external partners, and ODM/CM relationships across multiple time zones, particularly in Taiwan, China, or Southeast Asia.

· Experience working in an SME, startup, or lean team environment is strongly preferred.

· Bachelor's degree in Electrical Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Industrial Engineering, or a related field.

· PMP or equivalent certification is a plus, but demonstrated delivery track record matters more.

· Mandarin or Cantonese language skills are a meaningful advantage.

What Success Looks Like in Year One

· Products launch on schedule with no critical regulatory surprises, and cost overruns are flagged early with quantified impact.

· ODM/CM, supplier, certification-lab, and internal relationships are managed with clear accountability, professional follow-through, and difficult conversations handled with clarity and composure.

· Distributed team members feel informed, included, unblocked, and comfortable raising issues early; the PM's confidence is stabilising rather than intimidating.

· Meetings are fewer, better, and more useful: each has a purpose, agenda, decision record, action owners, deadlines, and prompt notes.

· The master tracker, action log, decision log, risk register, SharePoint library, cost model, and metrics dashboard are current, governed, and trusted as the source of truth.

· Leadership receives concise, plain-language project updates with risks, decisions, technical issues, supplier issues, and recommendations surfaced proactively.

· No open actions are orphaned; every item has an owner, due date, status, and active follow-up.

· A repeatable, lightweight NPI process is established, documented, and understood by the full distributed team.

Working Conditions

· Travel to Asia, including Taiwan, China, and Southeast Asia, approximately 15-25% annually.

· Hybrid or on-site arrangement depending on location, with close collaboration with the local engineering team expected.

· Routine early-morning or late-evening calls to align with Asian partners and cross-time zone teams are a structural part of the role.

· Flexible working hours are expected in exchange for time-zone accommodation.