This role is in-office in San Francisco Dogpatch neighborhood.
About GlacierHey, we're Glacier! Series A startup based in San Francisco tackling one of the world's most pressing problems: trash. Did you know that in the US, we send over half of our recyclables to the landfill? We're working to fix that. In doing so, we'll also be reducing carbon emissions, energy consumption, and depletion of natural resources.
Glacier builds custom sorting robots designed to sort apart recyclables as well as AI-powered business analytics that enable recyclers to superpower their plants and improve our society's circularity. From major CPG companies like Colgate and Amazon to municipal recycling facilities, our clients trust us to turn recycling data into actionable insights. Our technology has been recognized as one of TIME's Best Inventions and featured in a TIME documentary, TechCrunch, Fortune, and CBS.
The RoleWe're looking for an experienced Hardware Engineering Manager to lead Glacier's hardware and robotics development. You'll own the hardware roadmap and execution, lead our mechanical and electrical engineering teams, and ensure our systems are reliable, scalable, manufacturable, and cost-effective.
This role reports directly to our Co-Founder and CTO and will play a key role in shaping both our hardware architecture and how the team operates as we scale.
What you'll doOwn the strategy and execution of Glacier's hardware and robotics roadmap in close partnership with Product Management
Lead, mentor, and develop our hardware engineering team, keeping engineers focused and unblocked
Drive technical decisions and architectural tradeoffs across complex hardware systems
Establish lightweight engineering processes that improve execution, quality, and reliability
Partner with Operations, Manufacturing, Field Service, and Software to resolve cross-functional issues
Ensure machines can be manufactured, deployed and supported reliably at scale
Balance engineering capacity, customer timelines, deployment requirements, cost, and risk
Step in as an IC when needed to unblock critical technical challenges
This is a technical leadership role, not a day-to-day design role. You won't be expected to own CAD or execute routine hardware design work, but you should be comfortable getting deep into technical problems, reviewing designs, and providing architectural guidance.
What we're looking for5+ years of hardware engineering experience, including 2+ years leading engineering teams
Strong technical background in robotics, mechatronics, pneumatics, structural design, and DFM
Experience taking hardware from prototype through production, including contract manufacturing and supply chain
Experience building hardware for real-world deployment
Strong project judgment across engineering capacity, customer timelines, cost, risk, and deployment constraints
Technical judgment: You can get deep into complex hardware problems while keeping sight of what needs to ship
Prioritization: You make clear tradeoffs across effort, risk, cost, lead times, and customer impact
Leadership: You set direction, unblock engineers, and hold the team accountable
Systems thinking: You understand how hardware decisions affect manufacturing, field service, operations, and software
Adaptability: You thrive in an early-stage environment and are willing to jump in when needed
Experience at an early-stage startup (<50 employees)
Industrial automation, robotics, or heavy machinery experience
Hardware deployed across multiple customer sites
Edge deployments or on-site hardware troubleshooting experience
The total cash compensation range for this role is $185,000 - $200,000. In addition to cash compensation, Glacier also offers competitive equity compensation and benefits. Final compensation will depend on job-related skills and knowledge, experience level, interview performance, and other relevant factors.
Skills Required
- 5+ years of hardware engineering experience
- 2+ years leading engineering teams
- Strong technical background in robotics, mechatronics, pneumatics, structural design, and design for manufacturability
- Experience taking hardware from prototype through production, including contract manufacturing and supply chain
- Experience building hardware for real-world deployment
- Strong project judgment across engineering capacity, customer timelines, cost, risk, and deployment constraints
- Experience at an early-stage startup with fewer than 50 employees
- Industrial automation, robotics, or heavy machinery experience
- Hardware deployed across multiple customer sites
- Edge deployments or on-site hardware troubleshooting experience
What We Do
Glacier's mission is to end waste. Sound ambitious? We agree. But the UN estimates that we only have until 2030 to change our consumption patterns before we do irreversible damage to the environment, so we’re of the opinion that now is the time for big bets. We’re starting in the world of recycling, which has a huge opportunity for impact. Americans send 1.4 million tons of waste to recycling facilities every week (that’s about 4 Empire State Buildings, or 1.5 Golden Gate Bridges). We’re also really bad at it: 25% of what we put in our recycling bins isn’t even recyclable. These recycling facilities make a living by sorting our jumbled-up waste and they need to do it cheaply and accurately. Otherwise they go out of business and our recycling goes straight to the landfill. Even so, recycling facilities today use processes that are highly manual, expensive, and error prone. We plan to revolutionize the way these facilities use technology, to make them more streamlined, accurate, and profitable - which means more recyclables avoid the landfill, and more of our natural resources are protected. Our growing team draws from the brightest and most passionate professionals across robotics, manufacturing, software, AI, and market strategy. We’re united by our deep-rooted passion to make a big environmental impact, and we’re looking for other mission-driven, creative thinkers to help us right the ship on this truly global issue.
