Vice President Hardware Engineering

Hawthorne Recruitment; Fredericton; On-site; CAD 150,000 - 200,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Relocation support

Bonus potential (20%)

Job summary

SmartSkin Technologies in Fredericton, NB, seeks a dynamic Vice President, Hardware Engineering to lead the hardware and R&D function. You will own strategy, priorities, and delivery across mechanical, electrical, and embedded systems, partnering with the CPO to align technical direction with business goals.

You will build a scalable operating model, establish cadence and governance, and ensure alignment between R&D and production teams while maintaining depth and accountability.

Responsibilities

• Lead the multidisciplinary hardware and R&D function end to end.
• Define decision rights, roles, and work flow across disciplines.
• Prioritize across customer commitments, production issues, and platform development.
• Coach and develop a long-tenured technical team while preserving ownership.
• Turn institutional knowledge into usable standards and processes.
• Balance capacity with evidence-based hiring decisions.

Skills

Hardware engineering

R&D leadership

Cross-functional collaboration

Strategic planning

Job description

VICE PRESIDENT, HARDWARE ENGINEERING

SmartSkin Technologies | Fredericton, New Brunswick

The engineering team behind sensor technology running inside the world's largest pharmaceutical and beverage plants is ready for its first dedicated leader.

About Smartskin

SmartSkin Technologies builds sensor-enabled container replicas, digital container twins, that travel through high-speed filling and packaging lines exactly as a real vial, bottle, or can would, measuring the pressure, shock, tilt, and rotation the product experiences at every step. Paired with Quantifeel analytics software, that data shows manufacturers precisely where their lines damage product, and how to fix it.

Fifteen of the world's twenty largest pharmaceutical companies use SmartSkin technology. Six of the seven largest global beverage manufacturers run it on their lines. The technology operates in more than 25 countries, backed by a strategic partnership with Schott Pharma, and every one of 500+ product configurations is engineered in Fredericton.

WHY THIS ROLE EXISTS NOW

SmartSkin's hardware and R&D team spans mechanical design, electronics, embedded systems, materials science, and custom tooling. Much of the group has been with the company for a decade or more, and its success is built on deep expertise, autonomy, and trust.

The company has grown around that team. Day-to-day direction currently sits with the Chief Product Officer, who also carries software, operations, and product strategy. The function has never had a dedicated leader with the authority to set priorities, resolve competing demands, connect R&D with production, and advocate for the team at the executive table. That is the role.

This is not a turnaround. The team is strong and knows what it needs. The opportunity is to be the first real leader of a function that has earned one: to build the operating system, priorities, ownership, cadence, development, that lets an exceptional team scale with the business it created.

What You Will Own

Reporting to the CPO and operating with genuine decision-making authority, you will lead the multidisciplinary hardware and R&D function end to end:

• Decision rights and role clarity. Who owns what, where decisions sit, and how work moves across disciplines.
• Prioritization. A transparent framework for balancing customer commitments, production issues, platform development, and technical improvement. One the whole team understands and trusts.
• R&D-to-production flow. Issues logged, assigned, and resolved on a defined cadence.
• People leadership. Coaching and developing a long-tenured team while preserving the trust and technical ownership already present.
• Process and documentation. Turning critical institutional knowledge into usable standards, without imposing bureaucracy a fast-moving team doesn't need.
• Capacity. Clear trade-offs within current capacity and an evidence-based case for hiring where it is genuinely needed.
• Partnership with the CPO on technical direction and roadmap execution.

Who Succeeds Here

You combine operating discipline with technical credibility and a low-ego approach to change. You bring genuine depth in at least one hardware discipline, mechanical, electrical, embedded systems, sensors, or instrumentation, and enough breadth to hold the trade-offs across the rest. You have built structure inside an active delivery environment, earned authority with an established technical team, and connected engineering choices to commercial consequences. You see the year-one work of people, priorities, and process as leadership, not administration to clear before the real work begins.

A prior VP title and direct sensor-industry experience are not automatically required. Scope, judgment, and evidence of having led a comparable transition matter more. If you have built order into a strong technical team without breaking what made it strong, we want to hear from you.

LOCATION AND COMPENSATION

This role is based in Fredericton, New Brunswick, where the team, the lab, and the production interface are located. Meaningful on-the-ground presence is required, and relocation support is available for the right candidate.

Compensation range $150k - $200k plus a 20% bonus.