Engineering Manager, Data Systems Hardware & Operations

Meta; Pittsburgh (Allegheny County); On-site; USD 180,000 - 240,000; Full time

Job summary

Reality Labs is seeking an Engineering Manager to lead our Data Systems Hardware & Operations team. You will manage a cross-disciplinary group responsible for data capture systems, including multi-camera rigs, lighting, synchronization, and storage infrastructure across North America.

You will balance hands-on technical work with people leadership, define data collection strategies, and ensure operational capacity aligns with program needs.

Qualifications

• BS or higher in Mechanical, Electrical, or Systems Engineering (or equivalent experience).
• 12+ years experience as a hardware engineer across one or more of: electrical, mechanical, systems engineering, and embedded software.
• 5+ years of experience as a people manager with a track record in recruiting and developing teams.

Responsibilities

• Lead a multi-disciplinary hardware engineering team across mechanical, electrical, systems engineering, and firmware/embedded software.
• Translate product and research roadmaps into data collection plans and system requirements.
• Coordinate with researchers, engineers, and operations to prioritize projects and allocate resources across programs.

Skills

Data systems hardware

People management

Hardware engineering

AR/VR systems

Multi-site operations

System integration

Education

Bachelor's degree in Mechanical, Electrical, or Systems Engineering

Tools

NX

SolidWorks

Job description

Reality Labs is looking for an Engineering Manager to lead our Data Systems Hardware & Operations team. This team supports Codec Avatars, Input, and Health programs across all RL devices.

You'll manage a multi-disciplinary engineering team (mechanical, electrical, systems engineering, and firmware/embedded software) that designs, builds, and tests complex, large-scale data capture systems: multi-camera rigs with sophisticated lighting, synchronization, high-bandwidth data capture, and storage infrastructure. You'll also own the data collection operations that deploy these systems across North America, enabling the algorithm development and research that powers all of our devices.

In this role, you will combine hands‑on technical work with people leadership. You'll get hands‑on with critical hardware challenges, represent and advocate for the hardware engineering craft, and develop the overall data collection strategy with program leaders and stakeholders. That means translating product and research roadmaps into collection plans, defining system requirements, and making sure operational capacity keeps up with program needs.

You will coordinate across researchers, engineers, and operations teams, determining project priority, feasibility, and resource allocation across programs with competing timelines.

• BS or higher in Mechanical, Electrical, or Systems Engineering (or equivalent experience)
• 12+ years experience as a hardware engineer working across one or more of: electrical, mechanical, systems engineering, and embedded software or a similar domain
• 5+ years of experience as a people manager with a track record in recruiting and developing teams
• Direct experience shipping consumer hardware or working in technology R&D organizations
• Demonstrated expertise with complex data capture systems, including multi-camera rigs, lighting systems, hardware synchronization, and high-bandwidth data pipelines
• Experience with compute platform selection, system architecture, and integration for data capture or similar technical systems
• Experience operating or managing multi-site technical operations (labs, data collection, manufacturing, or similar)
• Experience leading design development from schematic capture, PCB layout through assembly
• Experience with AR/VR systems and motion capture systems
• Experience working with CM and EMS partners in design, manufacture, testing, and delivery of hardware solutions
• Experience in developing data collection or research operations strategies across multiple sites and programs
• Experience with embedded computing and wearable devices
• Background in health/medical devices, input devices, or biometric sensing systems
• Experience with digital circuit design and communications protocols (I2C, UART, SPI, USB, MIPI, I2S)
• Experience with camera systems, structured/controlled lighting, time synchronization (PTP/genlock), and high-speed data ingest/storage architectures
• Experience managing distributed teams and vendor partnerships across multiple geographies
• Experience with 3D design modeling (NX or SolidWorks) and physical prototyping
• Experience with high-bandwidth data transport (10 Gb/s/25 Gb/s/100 Gb/s Ethernet, PCIe, NVMe, high-speed serial interfaces)
• Experience with privacy and data compliance protocols for participant studies