Senior Hardware Product Manager

Kontakt.io; United States; Hybrid; USD 160,000 - 180,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Equity in a high-growth company

Health, dental, and vision insurance

Tools and autonomy to innovate hardware

Job summary

Kontakt.io in the United States is seeking a Hardware Product Manager to lead the development and management of physical hardware products, including beacons and tags. The ideal candidate should have at least 5 years of experience in hardware shipping and should be proficient in BLE technology. You will work closely with engineering teams, manage relationships with Chinese manufacturers, and ensure that the products meet hospital needs. Benefits include health insurance and equity in a growing company.

Qualifications

• At least 5 years of experience in hardware products and NPI cycles.
• Ability to debug BLE behavior in dense environments.
• Experience in managing relationships with manufacturers.

Responsibilities

• Define future hardware priorities and specifications.
• Collaborate directly with engineering on design and performance.
• Manage relationships with manufacturing partners in China.
• Translate customer needs into functional hardware designs.

Skills

Hardware shipping experience

BLE knowledge

Experience with Chinese manufacturers

Mechanical drawing interpretation

Field performance focus

Job description

About Kontakt.io

Kontakt.io is building the platform that care operations run on. We reduce waste, cut costs, and improve throughput in hospitals by automating and orchestrating clinical workflows. Using AI, real‑time location data (RTLS), and deep EHR integration, our platform enables care teams to operate with real‑time intelligence and financial discipline. Trusted by leading U.S. health systems including HCA, Sutter Health, AdventHealth, Trinity Health, and the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs – and backed by Goldman Sachs – we are scaling rapidly toward the next phase of durable, disciplined hypergrowth.

As Hardware Product Manager, you’ll own the physical layer that makes everything else possible – beacons, badges, tags, gateways, and sensing devices. This is a hands‑on role. You’ll be in the factory, in the field, and in the weeds with engineering.

What You’ll Do

• Define what we build next – across beacons, tags, badges, and gateways. You’ll set the priorities, write the specs, and make sure the team is always working on the right thing.
• Get into the weeds with engineering. EVT failures, antenna placement tradeoffs, battery drain edge cases – you’re in those conversations, not above them.
• Own the China relationship. Fly to Shenzhen, walk the factory floor, push back on timelines, negotiate costs, and make sure what ships is actually what you designed.
• Be the connective tissue between hardware and software. Firmware capabilities, BLE advertising behavior, OTA rollouts – you make sure the physical and digital sides of the product don’t drift apart.
• Translate what hospitals actually need into hardware that works in the wild – through walls, on moving equipment, in RF‑noisy ICUs. Field performance is the only metric that matters.

What Success Looks Like

• 30 Days: You’ve handled every device we ship, dug into field failure data, and shadowed at least one customer deployment. You know what’s broken and what’s next.
• 60 Days: You own a hardware roadmap – prioritized, grounded in real constraints, and already socialized with engineering and leadership.
• 90 Days: You’ve driven a real decision to sign‑off. A design change, a vendor call, a product variant. Something tangible.
• 6 Months: You’ve shipped something – a full NPI or a meaningful revision – on time, on cost, and with better field performance than what it replaced.

You’re a Fit If You…

• Have shipped hardware – real products, real factories, real NPI cycles. At least 5 years doing this, not adjacent to it.
• Know BLE well enough to have an opinion. Advertising intervals, RSSI behavior, multi‑path in dense environments – you’ve debugged these problems, not just read about them.
• Have spent real time with Chinese manufacturers. You know what to watch for at EVT, how to push back without blowing up the relationship, and why you need to be on the factory floor in person.
• Can read a mechanical drawing and challenge an enclosure decision. You don’t need to be an ME, but you need to know enough to ask the right questions.
• Obsess over field performance. Battery life, drop rates, deployment simplicity – you feel it personally when a device underperforms in the wild.
• Are happy to jump on a plane to Shenzhen or Kraków when it matters. This role requires presence, not just Zoom calls.
• Ship first, perfect later. You make decisions with incomplete information and own the outcome either way.
• Bonus: You’ve worked on RTLS, UWB, or anything deployed in healthcare or another regulated environment.

Benefits

• Equity in a high‑growth company on a clear trajectory toward $400M+ ARR
• Health, dental, and vision insurance
• 4 days a week in our New York office, with regular travel to our Poland engineering team and China manufacturing partners
• The tools, autonomy, and space to build hardware that actually ships

Compensation Range: $160K - $180K