Program Manager, Hardware & Packaging

Job description

## About Tin Can Tin Can is the Wi-Fi landline we built because we couldn't find one we actually wanted to give our own kids — no screens, no apps, no algorithm, just voice-to-voice connection with the people they love. We’re building a better way for kids and families to connect — starting with beautifully designed hardware and a global communications network underneath it. As we scale, we believe our long-term advantage won’t just come from IP or brand, but from how well we build and ship physical products at speed, quality, and cost. We're a small team building real, physical hardware that ends up in real human hands — which means the work is equal parts engineering, craft, compliance, and logistics. This role sits right at the center of that. ## The Role Every Tin Can that goes out the door — the phone, the packaging, the paper inserts inside the box — passes through at least six different departments before it's magical enough to plug in. We're looking for a Hardware Program Manager to make sure we’re all executing to the same deadlines and no one is left wondering where the bottleneck came from. You'll own program management end to end, keeping design, software, firmware, electrical, mechanical, legal, supply chain, manufacturing, marketing, and fulfillment moving in sync — from early concept through mass production and customer delivery. You won't be the person executing the work yourself, but you'll be the person who knows exactly where every workstream stands, what's blocking what, and what needs to happen next for the whole thing to ship on time. This is a mid-level role for someone who has run this playbook before on a physical product — not a purely digital one — and knows firsthand that a compliance miss, a tooling delay, and a marketing deadline are all the same problem wearing different hats. ## What You'll Do - Build and maintain master program timelines that connect design, software, firmware, electrical, mechanical, legal, supply chain, manufacturing, marketing, and fulfillment milestones into one coherent picture - Run the cadence — status meetings, cross-functional syncs, executive updates — that keeps every department honest about where things actually stand - See around the corner - Spot dependencies and risks before they become delays (a connector spec change here, supplier fallout there, a change to certification) and drive resolution across teams - Own the critical path from POC through mass production, and coordinate launch-readiness with marketing and fulfillment teams - Manage packaging development timelines alongside hardware, since a phone that ships in the wrong box is still a phone that doesn't ship - Translate ambiguity into clear plans — turning "we think we'll be ready sometime in Q3" into an actual dated, owned plan - Keep documentation, timelines, and decision logs in a state where anyone on the team can see what's happening without a meeting - Flag scope, cost, or schedule tradeoffs to leadership clearly and early, with options attached ## What You Bring - Minimum 3 years of program or project management experience, with real, hands-on time managing hardware or electrical/consumer appliance products from concept to shipped product - Comfort working across mechanical, electrical, and software/firmware disciplines — you don't need to design the PCBA, but you need to understand why it's late - Strong point of view on project management software - Excellent written and verbal communication — you can brief an engineer and a marketing lead on the same status in language each of them actually wants to hear - A calm, organized presence under real deadline pressure, and the backbone to push back on a date that isn't real - Genuine enthusiasm for what we're building — the mission should mean something to you ## Nice to Haves - Experience launching a physical consumer product that also had a connected/software component (hardware-plus-app or hardware-plus-subscription) - Experience working at a startup or small team where "that's not my job" isn't really a sentence anyone says ## Why Join Tin Can - **We're building tech that protects childhood.** We're on a mission to give kids a childhood based on real conversations and real connection. - **Your work is visible.** We're a small team, which means the products you help deliver to our customers are things the whole company sees and feels, and the breadth of this role means your fingerprints will be on a lot of what Tin Can puts into the world. - **Small, high-trust team.** Every company says "team," but at Tin Can it means something. We're a small, mission-driven group that genuinely has each other's backs — professionally and personally. You'll be in the room with the people making the decisions. - **Room to explore, not just coordinate.** You’ll be stewarding us through a varied portfolio of projects and will be encouraged to solve hard problems with creative solutions. - **Room to grow.** As the company scales, so does the scope. We're looking for someone who wants to grow with us.