Head of Hardware Operations (Shenzhen)

Who you are

We are looking for a Head of Hardware Operations. This person is a senior leader who has extensive experience leading their team in the new product development, manufacturing ramp and sustained production of high volume products.  They possess the meticulous attention to detail that is needed to plan production and material readiness to ensure on-time delivery to aggressive forecasts. They have experience managing both the execution of and relationship with large contract manufacturing partners and components suppliers. This person will ensure that the cost of our products meet targets and drive even lower than that. The Supply Chain Lead will ultimately ensure that our supply chain excels in delivery of supply, flexibility and cost while doing so in a way that meets our quality bar. 

A significant amount of this person’s time will be spent on-site at partner contract manufacturing facilities across the APAC region. 

In this role you will lead your team in in the following areas:

• Defining and driving the overall Supply Chain strategy from supplier risk management to component inventory planning to manufacturing planning.  Specific areas of focus include:
  • Ensuring supply of our products to forecast through effective management of our supply chain and our contract manufacturer partners, particularly through implementation of best practice tools such as factory capacity models, factory input/output production plans and material clear to build files.
  • Effectively managing end of life materials in a way that ensures product supply at a minimal risk to product quality. Ensure that the team has last-time buy opportunities and that the cross-functional engineering team is informed in sufficient time to implement alternate components.    
• Being a critical loop in our forecasting process. Ensure that the extended hardware team has understanding of lead times so proper expectations can be set regarding the ability to meet forecast upsides. Influence forecast adjustments as needed during NPI and sustained production based on our supply chains ability to deliver.
• Implementing tactics and strategies that allow for forecast flexibility, particularly upside. 
• Driving the lowest possible unit cost and NRE for our devices and programs through effective sourcing strategies, influence in the design of products and ultimately negotiation with our suppliers.
• Negotiating master supply and development contracts with our CM and supplier partners and the associated statements of work. These agreements will include things such as pricing, NRE costs, liability and material buffering.
• Being a strong partner to our quality teams to ensure our products meet quality targets. Drive manufacturing and supplier partners to implement all needed quality systems and resources.
• Communication with and managing the cross functional team to meet dates needed to ensure that we can ramp new programs to schedule so we can meet our supply commitments to the business. This includes driving the engineering and program management teams to meet design build exit dates and the quality team to complete reliability testing per schedule.
• Managing our corporate responsibility and environmental safety approach with suppliers. 
• In addition to leading the Supply Chain Management team, this role will also be responsible for leading the NPI Operations, Manufacturing Test Engineering (MTE), and Manufacturing Process Engineering (MPE) teams.  

Minimum requirements

• 15+ years experience leading teams in the new product ramp and sustained production of products in high volume manufacturing in the consumer electronics or adjacent space.
• Knowledge of and proven implementation of best tools to manage manufacturing output including factory line balancing and capacity models, production input/output reports and material clear to build (CTB) files.
• Experience working with and strong knowledge of final assembly and test, pack-out, and SMT production processes. 
• Strong knowledge of component manufacturing processes such as injection molding, battery pack, PCB fabrication and display assembly.
• The interpersonal skills and experience needed to work with CM teams and management in a collaborative way to meet development schedules and mass-production deliveries.
• A proven track record of driving lowest product cost and product cost reductions through using comprehensive knowledge of manufacturing processes and component roadmaps to conduct effective negotiations. 
• Experience in negotiating contracts with contract manufacturers and vendors for supply and development activities. 
• Deep experience in new product development and introduction. A strong understanding of what is required of each phase of development (EVT, DVT, etc.) and when key forward looking decisions need to be made - i.e. components risks buys and factory equipment purchases.  
• A working understanding of manufacturing test and manufacturing process engineering. Having the ability to establish a rapport with engineering teams to ensure that design for manufacturability is incorporated into designs. 
• Fluency in Chinese and English

Preferred qualifications

• Experience working in consumer electronics.
• Experience building and leading growing teams.
• Experience working in multinational companies
• Experience with POS hardware development and manufacturing including knowledge of tamper-proofing systems, and components for POS devices. 
• Familiarity with payments hardware related technologies.