Engineering Manager, Hardware
Job Description
🌊 Who are we?
We're building the world's largest hydration platform to replace a $1.5 trillion industry controlled by Coca-Cola and Pepsi — companies selling sugar water in plastic. Their model is stuck in the past. We're changing that, from the workplace.
In 2025: #2 fastest growing tech company in the Netherlands (Deloitte Fast50). #30 fastest growing in Europe (Sifted250). We're an AI-native company — AI is how we build, not an afterthought.
About the role
Aquablu builds connected water dispensers that sit at the intersection of industrial hardware, embedded software, and IoT, deployed across hundreds of sites and scaling fast. We're at the stage where the engineering organisation needs to grow up: better processes, higher output, without losing the speed that got us here.
As Engineering Manager, you own that. You lead the three engineering pillars: Hardware Engineering, Embedded Software, and Process Development & Industrialization. That means taking products from concept to manufacturing release, building the team and processes to do it repeatedly, and setting a technical bar that attracts and retains great engineers.
You report to the Head of Physical Product. Engineering and Product work tightly together here. You'll have a real voice in what gets built and how, with the autonomy to make technical calls and own their outcomes.
What you'll own
Lead three engineering pillars: Hardware Engineering, Embedded Software, and Industrialization. You push direction, remove blockers, and hold the bar.
Drive DFM and industrialization decisions: material selection, tolerances, cost targets, production scalability. You've done this before and know what it takes to get hardware that's designed for real-world manufacturing.
Own the full NPI process: from prototype through production release. No handoffs to hide behind; you're accountable end to end.
Build the team: hire well, develop people, establish engineering standards. You leave the team stronger than you found it.
Improve how engineering works: design reviews, testing protocols, documentation, ways of working. You build the system, not just the product.