Senior Technical Product Manager Hardware

Rain Bird Corporation is seeking a Senior Technical Product Manager Hardware to own a hardware product line from roadmap and definition through development, launch, and post-launch performance. The role partners with engineering, supply chain, operations, design, marketing, support, finance, sales, customers, and factories to deliver successful hardware and connected software products on time, at cost, and at quality.

Responsibilities:

• Own the roadmap for your hardware line across new products, line extensions, and lifecycle work on what has already shipped, kept led by data: customer research, product telemetry, support and returns data, channel input, and competitive intelligence
• Write the "working backwards" documents for each new product and major feature in your line: the customer problem, the value to customers, partners, and channels, the target price and cost, the success criteria, and the questions we have to answer before we commit
• Turn those into detailed, crisp business requirements and user stories that Engineering and Design can build to, spanning hardware, firmware, and the tethered app experience
• Manage the trade-offs among customer experience, performance, cost, schedule, and operational support load - and make the call, with a written rationale, when they conflict
• Feed the portfolio roadmap: bring the Director of Product the evidence, the sequencing constraints, and the bets you think are worth making in your category
• Run your line's stage gates as a mechanism, not a meeting: concept through EVT, DVT, PVT, and ramp, with clear owners and exit criteria at each, and an honest review of what we learned at the end
• Contribute to engineering decisions on technology and architecture - radios and protocols, sensors, power, enclosures - with enough fluency to be useful in the room and to recognize when a decision is a one-way door
• Know when a problem belongs to Design, hand it over cleanly, and facilitate their design development process rather than direct it
• Work with Supply Chain from concept forward on cost targets, supplier and contract manufacturer selection, tooling, and certification timelines, so initial inventory availability and delivery SLAs are set before we sell the product, not after
• Own the product inputs to supply and demand planning for your line: launch quantities, ramp assumptions, and transition and end-of-life plans
• Surface component shortages, cost overruns, schedule slips, and quality escapes early enough that we can still do something about them
• Partner with Product Marketing on your line's launches: crisp definition of the product experience (hardware and software) and its value to the customer, plus the technical inputs that positioning, packaging, and channel enablement depend on
• Own launch readiness on the product side: certification, firmware and app readiness, in-box content, support documentation, and the go/no-go criteria for build and ship
• Own and close the post-launch feedback loop: what is confusing customers, what is driving returns and support contacts, and what we fix in the next firmware or hardware revision
• Work closely with Engineering and project management to deliver on schedule
• Instrument your line so success is measurable: activation, engagement, return rate, defect and warranty rates, CSAT/NPS, and attach to software and subscription offerings

Requirements:

• You have been the lead PM on at least two consumer hardware products through a complete cycle - concept, definition, development, certification, launch - and stayed with it in the market long enough to live with your own decisions
• You have been in the builds. You have sat through EVT and DVT reviews, read failure analysis, and been part of a decision to re-tool or to ship as-is
• Hands-on fluency across mechanical engineering, electrical engineering, industrial design, and firmware. You do not need to be able to do all four. You do need to have worked closely enough with all four to hold your own: read a schematic and a mechanical drawing, know roughly what a tolerance change or an antenna placement costs, and tell when an estimate is soft
• You have shipped through contract manufacturers and know what DFM, tooling timelines, and certification (FCC, UL, CE) actually require
• Working knowledge of embedded firmware, mobile technology, web services, and back-end application infrastructure - enough to reason about what a feature actually requires
• You have taken a hardware concept from raw product intuition through fast, measurable tests to a decision - including the tests that killed the idea
• You direct AI to do work that used to take days - research synthesis, data analysis, first drafts - and you are clear about where its judgment ends and yours begins
• Exceptional written communication. You can distill a complex set of trade-offs into a written narrative a leadership team can act on
• Comfort operating as a hands-on individual contributor. You write the working backwards doc, build the requirements, run the gates, and sit in the DVT review yourself rather than assigning it
• Bachelor's degree
• Experience with smart home platforms and protocols - Matter, Thread, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth - and the platform partners that certify them
• Experience in two-step distribution or professional trade channels (irrigation, landscape, electrical, HVAC, plumbing, building products) alongside retail and D2C
• Experience with outdoor products, lighting, water management, or the sustainability categories
• Experience with partner, OEM, or white-label hardware programs
• Experience running a product line through an NPI or stage-gate process you did not design - and improving it from the inside
• Hands-on experience maintaining a residential yard and irrigation system (or willing and able to)
• Engineering degree or advanced degree