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.