Staff Engineering Program Manager

Job description

WHAT TO EXPECT Heron Power is a startup company building cutting-edge power electronics for the 21st-century grid. We aim to debottleneck the growth of electricity generation and consumption with scalable, innovative, and less costly hardware solutions, accelerating the electrification of everything. Our first focus goal is to build better converters (inverters & rectifiers) to connect large-scale renewables, storage, and loads to the grid. Heron Power’s leadership team is made up of seasoned veterans who have designed and shipped gigawatts of power conversion products over the past decade. We understand that no one individual knows everything. We will all learn a lot together and from each other. We strive to build a collaborative, enriching environment conducive to personal, technical, and career growth. You can expect to work in a dynamic and collaborative environment, driven by first principles engineering, solving difficult problems. JOB OVERVIEW As Staff Engineering Program Manager for Heron Power’s next-generation power conversion platform, you will own the execution of the product roadmap from architecture through manufacturing launch. This role is intentionally hands-on and technically deep. You will work directly with power electronics, firmware/software, systems integration, test, and reliability teams to translate architectural intent into executable plans, surface technical risks early, and ensure tight coordination and execution. You are not just tracking schedules — you are expected to understand power electronics, embedded firmware, or tightly coupled hardware-software systems well enough to ask the right questions, recognize when critical decisions are being deferred or avoided, and push cross-functional teams toward alignment. You'll be expected to spot gaps, hold teams accountable to sound tradeoffs, and keep execution moving. This is a high-visibility role with real ownership, where you will help build Heron Power's execution model and "no surprises" culture from the ground up. How You Will Contribute - Own and drive the end-to-end integration of Heron Power’s first product launch, translating system-level goals into structured, engineering-driven milestones across concept, architecture, validation, and launch - Drive deep coordination between power electronics, firmware/software, and systems integration teams, ensuring hardware and control-software roadmaps are tightly aligned and risks at the interfaces are actively managed - Lead program planning and execution across hardware design, embedded firmware, controls, test, reliability, compliance, supply chain, and manufacturing, with a clear plan of record and critical-path ownership - Partner with technical leads to track product requirements, validation strategies, and decision gates, ensuring design tradeoffs are explicitly documented and understood across teams - Facilitate and contribute to technical design reviews, including architecture reviews, design readiness reviews, and validation readiness reviews, with sufficient depth to surface real risks - Own engineering BOM strategy and NPI readiness, working closely with power electronics engineers and supply chain to balance performance, cost, availability, and manufacturability - Track DFMEA-driven risk management, ensuring risks across design, firmware behavior, system integration, and manufacturing are identified, mitigated, and retired - Be the steward of a “no surprises” culture: proactively surface technical and execution risks early, drive clarity, and ensure issues are addressed before they become program-blocking failures - Act as a force multiplier across the organization — increasing engineering velocity, reducing ambiguity at interfaces, and raising the bar on execution discipline without slowing innovation WHAT YOU WILL BRING We are looking for someone who combines strong program leadership with a background in power electronics systems. This role rewards people who are comfortable going deep, asking hard questions, and bridging disciplines. MUST-HAVE REQUIREMENTS - Bachelor’s degree in Engineering (Electrical with Power Electronics experience preferred) - 5+ years leading complex, multidisciplinary engineering programs, ideally involving power electronics, embedded firmware, or tightly coupled hardware-software systems - Experience driving programs from concept through validation and manufacturing launch, including prototype builds and design iterations - Strong grasp of DFM principles and the realities of building, testing, and scaling hardware - Proven ability to distill complex technical programs into clear risks, decisions, and priorities for both engineering and leadership audiences - Comfortable operating in a fast-moving startup environment, with high ownership, ambiguity, and minimal process overhead - Excellent communication skills and the ability to influence across engineering, operations, and leadership teams NICE-TO-HAVE QUALIFICATIONS - Technical foundation in power electronics systems, with the ability to understand converter architectures, control strategies, and system-level tradeoffs well enough to guide execution - Hands-on experience designing, validating, or debugging inverters, rectifiers, or other high-power conversion systems - Experience with power electronics simulation and modeling tools (PLECS, MATLAB/Simulink) - Familiarity with embedded firmware development for power electronics or control systems - Proficiency with BOM ownership, PLM systems, change management, and NPI processes - Experience with UL / IEC compliance for power conversion equipment - Familiarity with Enovia PLM, CATIA, or similar tools - Proficiency with Atlassian tools (Jira, Confluence) or similar technical program management platforms If you are passionate about technology and enjoy working in a fast-paced environment, we would love to hear from you. Join us in accelerating the electrification of everything at Heron Power. Heron Power provides competitive compensation (salary and equity) and benefits. The salary for this role ranges from $150,000 to $200,000 per year.