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Applied Intuition is a $15B-valued AI infrastructure company (founded 2017) powering physical AI across automotive, defense, trucking, construction, mining, and agriculture. The company serves 18 of the top 20 global automakers and the US military, with offices across North America, Europe, and Asia.
You will lead a 0-to-1 effort to establish and build out Applied Intuition's hardware operations department. This is a greenfield opportunity to create the entire hardware manufacturing operations function from scratch. You will own end-to-end responsibility for hardware manufacturing, including supplier selection and management across domestic and international partners, global supply chain execution, and delivery of physical AI hardware products across multiple verticals.
Key responsibilities include:
- Building and leading a multidisciplinary team of Operations Program Managers, Manufacturing Engineers, and Reliability/Quality Engineers
- Selecting, managing, and driving domestic and international manufacturing suppliers and global supply chains
- Driving new product introduction (NPI), design-for-manufacturability (DFx), quality assurance, and mass production setups
- Overseeing committed hardware product deliverables across automotive, trucking, defense, construction, mining, and agriculture sectors
- Managing global supplier selection, yield optimization, contract negotiation, and factory audit processes
This role reports directly into senior leadership and requires hands-on involvement in building the operations infrastructure while scaling the team. You will work closely with engineering, product, and commercial teams to execute on hardware roadmaps across diverse industries.
Applied Intuition operates primarily in-office (5 days/week from Sunnyvale HQ), with flexibility for occasional remote work and schedule adjustments.
REQUIREMENTS:
- BS or MS degree in Mechanical Engineering, Electrical Engineering, Industrial Engineering, Supply Chain Management, or related technical field
- 12+ years of experience in hardware operations and supply chain management
- 7+ years of direct experience building and leading engineering and operations teams (OPMs, MEs, Quality/Reliability Engineers)
- Experience managing consumer electronics manufacturing alongside experience in one or more of: automotive, trucking, defense, construction, mining, or agriculture
- Deep technical expertise in contract manufacturing management, printed circuit board assembly (PCBA), final assembly, test execution (FATE/ATE), and yield optimization
- Hands-on proficiency managing global supplier pipelines, bill of materials (BOM) costing, vendor audits, and quality control systems (ISO 9001/IATF 16949)
NICE TO HAVE:
- Experience shipping complex hardware products from early prototyping (0-to-1) through high-volume production
- Deep domain experience handling dual-use or defense hardware operational compliance and export requirements
- Track record of working directly with global tier-1 suppliers and contract manufacturers across domestic and international regions
