Product Manager (Commercial Hardware)

Inventure; San Francisco (CA); Hybrid; USD 185,000 - 225,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Hybrid work model

Job summary

Inventure in the SF Bay Area is hiring a Product Manager, Commercial Hardware to own the end-to-end hardware program from late-stage development through launch and beyond. You will define product requirements, manage BOMs, and align Engineering, Operations and Sales to deliver on customer needs and cost targets.

Based in the SF Bay Area or willing to relocate, you will partner with Mechanical, Electrical, Firmware teams and drive the roadmap for Gen 1 plus accessories, while balancing field

Qualifications

• Minimum 5 years in product management, with 3+ years on hardware/electromechanical products.
• Experience owning a BOM and cost conversations with numbers attached.
• Strong cross-functional executor with executive presence, aligning Engineering, Operations and Sales.
• Technical depth to discuss tradeoffs with engineers without designing hardware yourself.
• Experience from large-scale commercial hardware through late-stage development to deployment.

Responsibilities

• Define and maintain product requirements across current hardware and launch.
• Own BOM ownership and supplier/cost tradeoffs.
• Collaborate with Mechanical, Electrical, Systems and Firmware Eng and Industrial Design.
• Make hard product decisions in weekly reviews and escalate when needed.
• Turn field learnings into rapid improvements with Operations and translate early customer needs for deployment with Sales.
• Define roadmap beyond Gen 1 including accessories and metrics.

Skills

Product management

Cross-functional leadership

Hardware experience

Cost awareness

Job description

Product Manager, Commercial Hardware | SF Bay Area (Hybrid) | $185K–$225K base plus equity

We have partnered with a Bay Area hardware company taking on food waste, turning everyday kitchen scraps into a reusable resource rather than landfill. Founded in 2020, around $250 million raised across five rounds from major climate and strategic investors, and tens of thousands of units already in homes. Having proven the concept there, they are bringing the technology into commercial kitchens, and this year signed two national agreements, one with a grocery chain and one with a food service operator running tens of thousands of sites, both deploying from 2027.

The commercial product is a real, physical machine moving from late-stage development into launch, with early customers already in the field and a roadmap of new SKUs and accessories ahead. This is a rare opportunity to own a commercial hardware program end to end, from current development through customer launch to the next generation. You will be accountable for defining what the product should do and why, then keeping Engineering, Operations and Sales rowing in the same direction week after week.

One thing makes this job harder and more interesting than it looks. The person who signs the purchase order is a facilities manager. The person who uses the machine is a kitchen porter at eleven at night who did not ask for it and will not read the manual. You are solving for both, and they want different things.

The Role

As Product Manager, Commercial Hardware, you will:

• Define and maintain clear product requirements across the full cycle, from the current hardware phase through commercial launch, grounded in customer needs, field learnings and business constraints.
• Own cost as a product decision: BOM ownership, supplier and sourcing tradeoffs, and the quantified calls on where cost comes out and what it costs you in performance, reliability or serviceability.
• Partner deeply with Mechanical, Electrical, Systems and Firmware Engineering and with Industrial Design so the product looks, feels and performs the way commercial customers expect.
• Make and document the hard product decisions in weekly hardware and program reviews, and escalat e when a tradeoff needs a call above your level.
• Turn field learnings into improvements fast with Operations, and translate what early customers need into deployment-ready requirements with Sales.
• Own the roadmap beyond Gen 1, including accessories, and define the metrics that track both development and in‑market performance.

About You

• At least 5 years in product management, with 3 or more on hardware or electromechanical products, and you have taken a product through late-stage development, pilot and into commercial deployment.
• You have owned a bill of materials and the cost conversation that goes with it, and can talk through a tradeoff you made with the numbers attached.
• You are a strong cross‑functional executor with real executive presence: you keep Engineering, Operations and Sales aligned, run meetings that produce clear decisions, and communicate cleanly both up to leadership and down to the ground.
• You have genuine technical depth: comfortable in a room full of engineers, able to engage on tradeoffs and knowing when to elevate, even though you are not designing the hardware yourself.
• You have supported early field deployments, you know what breaks in the real world, and you close the feedback loop quickly.
• One of these backgrounds fits you: a PM from large-scale commercial hardware where you owned the whole product end to end, for example commercial coffee or brewing equipment, aerial or nautical drones, ebikes, or powered mopeds. Large scale plus full ownership is what matters, so consumer handheld devices or single-module automotive experience alone will not be enough.

Nice to have: experience with commercial food service, institutional kitchens or food waste equipment; field-serviceable or IoT-connected hardware; or time at an early-stage hardware startup.

You will be based in the San Francisco Bay Area, or ready to relocate there, and comfortable working onsite. Visa sponsorship is not available for this role.