Technical Manager, Connected Product Development

About the role
Gembah helps brands turn product ideas into manufactured reality. Increasingly those products are connected: a device, firmware, a phone app, and a cloud back-end, built by two or three different partners who have never worked together and each of whom would prefer the awkward parts to belong to someone else.
We're looking for a Technical Manager who can own that whole picture. The core of the job is defining the system — what it does, how the pieces talk to each other, and who is accountable for each one — and writing it down clearly enough that hardware and software partners can bid against it, build to it, and be held to it.
This is a writing and judgment role as much as an engineering one. You will spend a lot of time producing specifications and requests for proposal: numbered requirements, architecture diagrams, ownership tables, open-item registers with an owner against each. You will spend the rest of it directing the designers and engineers executing the work, evaluating partner bids, and making the calls when a client's vague ambition meets a battery budget.
Experience taking a connected consumer product from concept to production is essential. If you have written a system specification that a third party successfully built from, say so in your application.
What you'll doSystem definition and specification
Own the technical specification for connected products: system topology, hardware architecture, firmware/app/cloud module breakdown, communication paths, and the constraints that hold them together.
Write requirements that are testable and traceable — tied to defined use cases, numbered, and unambiguous about what is in and out of scope.
Draw and defend the ownership boundary between hardware partner, software partner, catalogue supplier, and client, and keep it authoritative when the document pulls in other directions.
Decide what belongs in V1 and what is deliberately deferred, and record the reasoning — including the small number of constraints (signed firmware, rollback, security posture) that must not be traded away in a later cost-reduction pass.
Identify open items honestly, assign an owner to each, and structure the document so open items don't block a quote.
Partner selection and management
Issue RFPs and evaluate responses on technical merit, not just price: spot the bidder who has misread the scope, the quote that omits the expensive part, the architecture proposed because the vendor already owns it.
Set planning assumptions bidders can price against, and define the change-order path when a final selection differs.
Act as the technical counterpart to firmware, app, cloud, and hardware partners through delivery, and hold them to acceptance criteria you defined up front.
Technical leadership and client work
Direct the designer or engineer on each project: set the approach, review their work, make the calls.
Translate client goals, including vague or shifting ones, into buildable requirements — and push back constructively when the timeline, cost, or spec doesn't add up.
Serve as the technical bridge between clients, internal teams, and overseas manufacturing and development partners.
Own the quality of technical deliverables and be the person clients and colleagues turn to for the answer.
Process
Build and refine the templates, checklists, and review practices that make connected-product scoping repeatable rather than heroic.
What you'll bringRequired
5+ years in product development or technical program management, including at least one connected consumer product taken from concept through production.
Demonstrated specification writing. You can produce a document a third-party development group can quote and build from. We will ask for a sample or a detailed walkthrough of one you've written.
Systems fluency across the hardware/software boundary. You don't need to write production firmware, but you should be comfortable reasoning about: MCU selection (ESP32-class or similar) against firmware and OTA needs; deep-sleep and duty-cycle power budgets; sensor conditioning and ADC paths; BLE provisioning and WiFi onboarding; OTA update architecture, dual-partition rollback, and signed images; cloud ingestion, data retention, and realistic scale sizing; push notification paths; and app store submission and privacy disclosure requirements.
Hardware engineering literacy. Injection molding and DFM, tooling and piece-price drivers, sealing and ingress protection, enclosure/antenna interaction, and how a mechanical decision constrains an electrical one. You'll be reviewing and directing this work rather than doing it yourself, but you need to be fluent enough to catch what others miss.
Judgment about scope and cost. The ability to look at a requirement and say what it will cost, what a cheaper version would lose, and whether the difference matters.
Exceptional written communication and attention to detail. These documents are the product of the role. Ambiguity in them becomes an invoice later.
Ability to run multiple projects at once in a start-up environment, with comfort around ambiguity and shifting priorities.
Strongly preferred
Experience writing or responding to RFPs for hardware or software development work.
Experience managing outsourced development partners, overseas suppliers, or both.
Working knowledge of the certification path for connected products: FCC/IC, CE/UKCA, and the relevant product-safety and battery standards.
Familiarity with privacy and platform compliance regimes that constrain connected consumer products — GDPR, CCPA, COPPA where children's data is involved, Apple and Google store policy.
Safety-critical or regulated product experience, particularly systems where a software failure must degrade to a hardware-enforced safe state.
Proficiency in 3D CAD (SolidWorks preferred; Fusion 360, Siemens NX, or Rhino also considered) sufficient to review and direct others' work.
Experience guiding or mentoring designers and engineers.
Degree in a related technical field such as Mechanical Engineering, Electrical Engineering, Product Design, or Industrial Design.
Not required
Writing production firmware or application code yourself.
PCB layout or schematic capture yourself.
Prior experience in any specific product category. Our clients span categories, so no two projects look the same.
Why join us
Remote but ideally located in Austin, Tx
$90,000 to $100,000, plus benefits.
Real ownership. You'll define systems from concept to shelf and see them in market.
Variety. Connected products across categories, with the technical range that implies.

Work arrangement
No