glacier

Director of Hardware Engineering

San Francisco Office
Full-time
$185,000 - $200,000
Posted Oct 1, 2026

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Skills

Hydraulics
Leadership
Operations
Product Management
Robotics
Supply Chain
Industrial Automation
Troubleshooting

Job description

This role is in-office in San Francisco Dogpatch neighborhood.

ABOUT GLACIER

Hey, we're Glacier! Series A startup based in San Francisco tackling one of the world's most pressing problems: trash. Did you know that in the US, we send over half of our recyclables to the landfill? We're working to fix that. In doing so, we'll also be reducing carbon emissions, energy consumption, and depletion of natural resources.

Glacier builds custom sorting robots designed to sort apart recyclables as well as AI-powered business analytics that enable recyclers to superpower their plants and improve our society's circularity. From major CPG companies like Colgate and Amazon https://www.packworld.com/sustainable-packaging/recycling/article/22953724/colgatepalmolive-amazon-glacier to municipal recycling facilities, our clients trust us to turn recycling data into actionable insights. Our technology has been recognized as one of TIME's Best Inventions https://time.com/collections/best-inventions-2025/7318523/glacier-recycling-robots/ and featured in a TIME documentary https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VQ8nEagtVZI, TechCrunch, Fortune, and CBS.

THE ROLE

We're looking for an experienced Director of Hardware Engineering to lead Glacier's hardware and robotics development. You'll own the hardware roadmap and execution, lead our mechanical and electrical engineering teams, and ensure our systems are reliable, scalable, manufacturable, and cost-effective.

This role reports directly to our Co-Founder and CTO and will play a key role in shaping both our hardware architecture and how the team operates as we scale.

WHAT YOU'LL DO

•Own the strategy and execution of Glacier's hardware and robotics roadmap in close partnership with Product Management

•Lead, mentor, and develop our hardware engineering team, keeping engineers focused and unblocked

•Drive technical decisions and architectural tradeoffs across complex hardware systems

•Establish lightweight engineering processes that improve execution, quality, and reliability

•Partner with Operations, Manufacturing, Field Service, and Software to resolve cross-functional issues

•Ensure machines can be manufactured, deployed and supported reliably at scale

•Balance engineering capacity, customer timelines, deployment requirements, cost, and risk

•Step in as an IC when needed to unblock critical technical challenges

This is a technical leadership role, not a day-to-day design role. You won't be expected to own CAD or execute routine hardware design work, but you should be comfortable getting deep into technical problems, reviewing designs, and providing architectural guidance.

WHAT WE'RE LOOKING FOR

•5+ years of hardware engineering experience, including 2+ years leading engineering teams

•Strong technical background in robotics, mechatronics, pneumatics, structural design, and DFM

•Experience taking hardware from prototype through production, including contract manufacturing and supply chain

•Experience building hardware for real-world deployment

•Strong project judgment across engineering capacity, customer timelines, cost, risk, and deployment constraints

WHAT WILL MAKE YOU SUCCESSFUL

•Technical judgment: You can get deep into complex hardware problems while keeping sight of what needs to ship

•Prioritization: You make clear tradeoffs across effort, risk, cost, lead times, and customer impact

•Leadership: You set direction, unblock engineers, and hold the team accountable

•Systems thinking: You understand how hardware decisions affect manufacturing, field service, operations, and software

•Adaptability: You thrive in an early-stage environment and are willing to jump in when needed

BONUS POINTS

•Experience at an early-stage startup (<50 employees)

•Industrial automation, robotics, or heavy machinery experience

•Hardware deployed across multiple customer sites

•Edge deployments or on-site hardware troubleshooting experience

COMPENSATION

The total cash compensation range for this role is $185,000 - $200,000. In addition to cash compensation, Glacier also offers competitive equity compensation and benefits. Final compensation will depend on job-related skills and knowledge, experience level, interview performance, and other relevant factors.