Director of Hardware
Aerovect · South San Francisco - Onsite
- On site
- Fulltime
- South San Francisco - Onsite
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Subject: Interested in the Director of Hardware role at Aerovect
Hi Jamie — I came across the Director of Hardware opening and wanted to reach out directly. I've spent the last few years doing exactly this kind of work, and Aerovect stood out because…
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About the role
Who We Are
AeroVect is transforming ground handling with autonomy, redefining how airlines and ground service providers around the globe run day-to-day operations. We are a Series A company backed by top-tier venture capital investors in aviation and autonomous driving. Our customers include some of the world’s largest airlines and ground handling providers. For more information, visit www.aerovect.com.
We are hiring a Director of Hardware to lead our hardware organization end-to-end. You will manage the entire hardware team across mechanical, electrical, and electromechanical engineering, drive-by-wire, sensor suite, manufacturing and supply chain. You will own the technical direction of the vehicle platform and be accountable for the hardware roadmap and the team that delivers it. You will report directly to the VP of Engineering.
This is a hands-on leadership role. We are looking for a leader who is excellent both at the systems level and at execution — someone with deep technical credibility across mechanical and electrical engineering who is also strong at managing, hiring, and scaling a hardware organization that ships real physical product at production volume.
You Will
Own the AeroVect vehicle platform — the integrated mechanical, electrical, and electromechanical systems that turn an off-the-shelf airport tractor into an autonomous vehicle — end-to-end, technically and organizationally.
Technical strategy and vehicle architecture
Set and own the multi-year hardware roadmap and the architectural direction for our vehicle platforms across generations, trading off cost, reliability, manufacturability, and safety.
Own the integration points where mechanical, electrical, and electromechanical subsystems meet — sensor mounts, compute enclosures, wiring harnesses, actuation mechanisms, power distribution — and make sure those interfaces hold up in the field.
Drive design-for-manufacturing rigor into the platform so that our fleet can be produced at volume without continuous engineering involvement on the production line.
Team and execution
Manage the hardware team across all disciplines. Build the org structure, hire the senior talent, run the operating cadence, and be accountable for delivery against the company's hardware roadmap.
Stay technical. This is not a hands-off leadership role. You are expected to be in design reviews, to push back on technical decisions with substance, and to credibly debug the hardest problems with the team.
Drive-by-wire and safety-critical electromechanical systems
Partner with the software teams on the next generation of our drive-by-wire stack, covering steering, braking, throttle, and the vehicle interface.
Own the redundancy architecture for each drive-by-wire subsystem — what requires full dual-redundancy, what can rely on degraded-mode fallback, and what the safe state is for each failure scenario.
Lead the path toward a certified drive-by-wire solution that meets functional-safety standards (ISO 26262 / ISO 13849) and unlocks driverless operation at scale, including vendor selection and qualification.
Sensor suite, compute, and field reliability
Own the next generations of sensor suite design across the relevant sensing modalities, optimized for aviation-specific requirements, airside survivability, and cost.
Drive reliability improvements across the vehicle based on field failure data, including the hardening of compute and sensor enclosures against the airside environment.
Standardize the vehicle BOM and assembly documentation so builds and installations are repeatable, high-quality, and serviceable across the fleet.
Manufacturing and supply chain
Own the technical relationship with suppliers and contract manufacturers — selection, qualification, and management.
Own the discipline around moving from prototype through pilot production into volume manufacturing, including hardware bring-up and board revisions.
You Have
15+ years of hands-on hardware engineering experience on real, shipped products — vehicles, robotics, industrial equipment, or comparable physical systems operating in demanding environments.
Genuine dual depth in mechanical and electrical engineering. You don't need to be the world's best in both, but you need to be able to lead designs and design reviews credibly in both disciplines and to make the trade-offs at the boundary.
Direct management experience of a hardware or robotics team across multiple disciplines, including senior and staff-level ICs. You have hired, leveled, and grown hardware talent before.
Track record of running the operating cadence of a hardware organization — planning, prioritization, design reviews, performance management — without losing the technical edge that makes the team trust you.
Demonstrated experience taking a product from architecture through DFM, supplier qualification, pilot build, and into volume production.
Direct experience with electromechanical actuation systems — steering, braking, drive systems — including the controls and PCB work that surrounds them.
A clear track record of working on hardware that has to be reliable, not just functional. You understand the difference between something that works in a demo and something that survives continuous operation in a hostile environment.
We Prefer
Experience with functional-safety standards (ISO 26262, ISO 13849, IEC 61508, or aerospace equivalents) and the engineering discipline they impose on hardware design.
Direct experience designing or qualifying certified drive-by-wire systems, or comparable safety-critical electromechanical systems.
Experience working with contract manufacturers at the hundreds-to-thousands-of-units-per-year scale.
Background in commercial vehicles, off-highway equipment, industrial robotics, or aerospace ground systems — domains where the environmental and reliability constraints are closer to ours than consumer or pure on-road automotive.
Firmware / embedded experience, or a track record of leading firmware/embedded engineers as part of a hardware organization.
Why this role at AeroVect?
A real product in the field. AeroVect tractors run every day, all day, in commercial operation. Your hardware decisions show up in the operational data within weeks, not years.
Scope. This is the senior hardware leadership role at AeroVect. You own the vehicle platform end-to-end across mechanical, electrical, electromechanical, sensor, and manufacturing disciplines, and the team that builds it.
A defined path to scale, not a science project. A real commercial deployment with a concrete path to removing the safety driver and scaling the fleet. Your hardware decisions have a destination.
Certified drive-by-wire is one of the highest-value problems in autonomous GSE. Solving it is a hard prerequisite for driverless operation at scale, and the leader who owns it will have one of the most consequential hardware roles in the industry.