Engineering Lead

Engineering Lead is sought by a high growth AI/ hardware start up based in Birmingham city centre.

Following significant progress in bringing its flagship product to market, the business is now looking for a Engineering Lead to take ownership of the next phase of product development.
This is a senior, hands-on role for someone who can operate across software, hardware, AI and technical programme leadership. You'll work closely with the founders, build and lead the engineering team, and own the development programme across hardware and software.

The Role

You'll take responsibility for turning the product vision and roadmap into an executable engineering programme.
You'll need enough technical breadth across hardware & software to understand the complete system, make informed trade-offs across different engineering disciplines, challenge technical decisions and keep a complex physical product moving towards production.

You'll own:
- The product roadmap and development programme from planning through delivery
- Milestones, dependencies, risks and critical-path management
- Prioritisation and sequencing across hardware and software
- Requirements, specifications and system-level technical trade-offs
- Coordination between engineering, operations, commercial and marketing teams
- Building, hiring, mentoring and developing the engineering team
- Budget, resourcing, external suppliers and vendors
- Product quality and engineering standards
- Clear communication of progress, risks and decisions to founders and the board

What We're Looking For

We're particularly interested in people who have taken complex physical products from development towards production and launch, rather than candidates whose experience is exclusively software or traditional product management.

You'll ideally bring:

- 8+ years' experience in product or engineering development, with meaningful leadership responsibility
- Experience developing consumer hardware, appliances or another complex physical product
- Experience managing hardware and software development simultaneously
- Strong technical programme management across multiple engineering disciplines
- Enough technical depth to challenge engineers and make sensible system-level decisions
- Experience defining requirements and specifications and managing engineering trade-offs
- People-management experience, including hiring, mentoring and developing engineers
- Experience managing budgets, resources, suppliers and external engineering partners
- Confidence communicating directly with founders, senior leadership and boards

Why Join?

Rather than inheriting a narrow remit, you'll have significant ownership over what gets built, how the engineering organisation develops and how the product progresses through future generations.
This role will also offer a clearly defined route to CTO plus a six figure package and private healthcare.

We believe in the value of face to face collaboration so are after someone who is happy to be on-site four days a week in Birmingham.

Engineering Lead
Birmingham