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About the Role

We are hiring a Hardware Operations Lead to own our IoT hardware as a manufactured product, encompassing manufacturing partnerships, fulfillment, RMA, supply chain, BOM management, cost-down, unit economics forecasting, and hardware program management. This is our first dedicated hardware operations hire, and you will build the foundational systems, processes, and supplier relationships for the function as the company scales.

Responsibilities

Own the contract manufacturer relationship, including capacity planning, build-schedule coordination, supplier escalations, and quality loop closure.
Manage the BOM as a single source of truth across revisions and drive line-by-line cost-down.
Qualify second-source suppliers, particularly in China, Taiwan, and Southeast Asia.
Forecast unit economics credibly for board-level discussions.
Run production planning and the PO lifecycle, maintaining inventory visibility across all stages.
Manage hardware programs for active initiatives, including build schedules and FCC certification.
Coordinate next-generation hardware specifications and research sensor procurement.
Manage LoRa router and gateway matching across customer sites.
Oversee IoT runtime cost management.
Serve as the first point of contact for hardware issues in the field, closing the loop with engineering and suppliers.
Build operational systems and processes to scale from dozens to thousands of deployed units while maintaining visibility, quality, and velocity.
Provide regular operational reporting, including weekly snapshots and monthly cost/yield trends.

Requirements

Proven experience scaling hardware products from prototype through volume production.
Deep understanding of operational realities at different production volumes (50, 500, 5,000 units).
Extensive experience with contract manufacturing, BOM ownership, supply chain management, production planning, and hardware programs.
Experience shipping meaningful volumes of hardware and managing the transition from engineering builds to repeatable production.
Direct working relationships with Asian manufacturers and suppliers (Chinese, Taiwanese, or Southeast Asian).
Willingness to work across different time zones, including early mornings and evenings.
Strong operator instincts, including cost modeling, forecasting, and margin discussions.
Ability to translate operational realities into actionable insights for the board or investors.
Strong program management discipline with a proactive approach to schedule adherence.
Comfort working autonomously in a small, early-stage company environment without established processes.
Comfortable with hardware details, understanding manufacturing constraints, component tradeoffs, test processes, and field realities.
Technically literate to engage credibly with suppliers, contract manufacturers, and internal engineering teams.
Direct, low-ego communication style.

Skills

Contract manufacturing
BOM management
Supply chain management
Production planning
Hardware program management
Unit economics forecasting
Cost-down initiatives
Supplier qualification
FCC certification
LoRaWAN
LTE-M
NB-IoT
Mandarin (preferred)
IP-rated enclosure design (preferred)
Environmental robustness testing (preferred)

Location

San Francisco, CA

Work Type

Full-time
Permanent
In-person

Experience Level

Mid-level to Senior

Salary/Compensations

$140,000 - $167,000

Benefits

Meaningful early-stage equity
Standard benefits

About the Company

The Electric Plant Co. is building a new category of plant and tree intelligence using IoT hardware that measures electrical signals and environmental data.
Our foundation model decodes these signals into real-time insights about plant health, growth, and stress.
We operate at the intersection of biology, hardware, AI, and IoT.
We closed our seed round in November 2025 and our first commercial deployment launches in August.