Head of Hardware

Elections are the foundation of democracy, and democracy depends on elections that are broadly trusted. Over the last 20 years, public trust in the technology that powers our elections has dropped significantly. With this distrust, democracy itself is at stake. VotingWorks is a non-partisan not-for-profit building election technology that every American can trust.

VotingWorks is entering a pivotal growth phase where we’re scaling up to become a national contender with deployments of voting machines in up to 10 states by 2028. We’ve had a fantastic Head of Hardware for the last 2.5 years, focused on hardware engineering and design. We now need a new Head of Hardware who can lead on Hardware Operations and Manufacturing. Our current Head of Hardware, will stay on as Lead Hardware Engineer.

You might be our new Head of Hardware if you know how to take us from hundreds of units to thousands and possibly tens of thousands. You will report to the Executive Director and sit on the VotingWorks Executive Team and be a key contributor to organizational strategy.

• Oversee all hardware engineering and design
• Oversee warehouse and assembly team
• Oversee product lifecycle management (PLM)
• Manage and expand as needed hardware operations roles (e.g. program management)
• Provide exemplary leadership and management for a growing expert team
• Define and implement product development stage-gate processes

• Work closely with our Lead Hardware Engineer and our Head of Product
• Manage the refinement of our current hardware product for scalability
• Assist Lead Hardware Engineer on definition and roadmap of our next generation hardware products 
• Collaborate with the Compliance & Governance Partnerships Team to define and maintain quality assurance standards across suppliers, products, and manufacturing processes

• Ensure high-quality assembly and high-security warehousing as we scale up
• Work closely with our Head of Business Operations on the production, transportation, and delivery of our products
• Develop the make vs. buy strategy for the product portfolio
• Source and quality contract manufacturing (CM) partners to execute against the outsourcing strategy 

• 10+ years in Hardware roles
• 5+ years in Hardware leadership role(s) with an emphasis on Hardware Operations, and people management experience.
• Extensive experience in scale-up environments, building new systems from scratch and adapting existing systems as needed.
• Deep strategic thinking & a highly collaborative work style.

We are a small, tight-knit team. We strive to be a flat organization when it comes to ideas and input. We believe in good management, even as a small organization, so that every VotingWorks team member gets mentorship, feedback, and an opportunity for personal growth. We strive to be both confident in the skills and knowledge we each bring and humble in our interactions with each other and other stakeholders in the election space.

We’ve been thinking about the problems and rough edges of our democracy for a while – some of us for our whole career, others for “only” a few years. We’ve decided that talking about it isn’t enough - we must do something. We’re building actual solutions that solve real problems. If that sounds exciting, we hope you’ll consider joining our team.

We’re a mostly distributed organization, with team members working from home in nine different states. For many of our roles, you can live anywhere you want. For some of our roles, we need you in specific geographies. If there’s a geographical requirement, it’s never “just to be in the same room as the rest of the team,'' it’s for very clear reasons like customer need or working on physical hardware together. 

This position can be anywhere in the continental US, as long as you’re close to a major airport. Some travel to our current and future assembly sites is required.

We offer a flexible work schedule and we're on board with schedule flexibility: many team members have kids, pets, family members they care for, extensive hobbies, and other personal commitments that don’t always conform to a strict 9-5 schedule. We get that, and we think we’re a better organization if we adapt to that. We work hard, we just don’t work hard on a strict schedule. With flexibility comes responsibility: you should be comfortable with significant autonomous work. And of course, in this role, you do need to be often available during times where customers can reasonably expect demos, calls.

We never discriminate on the basis of sex, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, race, ethnicity, background, ability/disability or really anything that isn’t about your actual skills.

We strive to go beyond that: we want to build a diverse organization that truly represents the people of the United States of America. We especially want to encourage women and members of under-represented groups to apply. You’ll always be judged on your skills and contributions, and we know that a more diverse team in all dimensions is a better team.

We use AI in our work at VotingWorks, and we try to do so judiciously. We do not use AI for recruiting purposes, because we believe that (a) we could miss great candidates through automated AI review, and (b) the incentives are then for you to tailor your resume to AI consumption, which isn't the best way for us to get to know each other.

Your application will be reviewed by people only. We recommend a resume that is clear and to the point of your skills and experience, meant to be read by a person without automated filters.