Hardware Product Manager

Standard Bots is building the world's most accessible robotics platform to bring advanced automation into manufacturing and beyond, with intuitive hardware and software that empower human productivity. This role is onsite in either Glen Cove, NY or Boston, MA.

Overview

Industrial hardware has been slow-moving and hard to iterate on for decades. We're trying to change that—bringing a consumer-grade pace of iteration and craft to a world that hasn't seen much of either. Most hardware products ship once and live with their decisions for years. Ours need to move fast, get into the field, get tested against reality, and improve—because a robot that doesn't hold up on a factory floor doesn't just frustrate a customer, it stops their production line.

We're looking for a Hardware PM who is a builder first. Someone who wants to own a product from a blank sheet of paper through to a customer relying on it every day. Someone who understands the market well enough to know what's worth building, and who treats every prototype as a question to be answered rather than an answer to be defended. Someone with product sense and taste who can tell the difference between ‘ships’ and ‘good’.

What You Will Do

• Own product discovery, strategy, and delivery for a hardware product area from 0-1—from market insight and concept through to a shipped, supportable product.

• Build a sharp point of view on the market: who the customer is, what they're solving for today, where competitors fall short, and where the real opportunity is.

• Drive iterative testing loops - prototype, test against real-world conditions, learn, and revise quickly.

• Go deep on customer problems - talk to users, visit sites, understand how hardware actually gets used in the field.

• Define what we're building and why, with clear specs and requirements that engineers can run with.

• Work hands-on with mechanical, electrical, and firmware engineers to make trade-offs between cost, manufacturability, performance, and schedule.

• Collaborate with design and engineering to de-risk assumptions early, before they're expensive to fix.

What We're Looking For

• 5+ years in hardware product management, ideally with hands-on experience building robotics products.

• Experience taking a hardware product from 0-1 - from early concept and market validation through to a released product.

• You're comfortable running iterative test-and-learn cycles with physical prototypes, not just software.

• You've built and shipped things you're proud of - not just managed process.

• You think critically about customer and market problems and can break down ambiguity into structured decisions.

• You have design and engineering sense and care about craft - you notice when something is off and it bothers you.

• You communicate clearly with both technical and non-technical stakeholders.

Nice to Have

• A mechanical engineering degree (or related discipline), with real hands-on design or build experience.

• Experience running structured tests on physical products - DOE, prototype validation, reliability or environmental testing.

• Familiarity with CAD tools (SolidWorks, Fusion 360), DFM/DFA and manufacturing processes (injection molding, sheet metal, CNC), and electromechanical systems, motors, or controls - enough to read a drawing, sanity-check tolerances, and make informed trade-offs with engineers.

• Prior experience at a robotics, automation, or industrial equipment company, with a feel for how that market evaluates and buys products.

• Startup experience owning a product end-to-end across both hardware and software, without staying confined to one discipline.