SlipstreamJobs tracks this role from the company's public career site. Apply directly on the employer's site.
Kodiak Robotics is seeking a Staff Harness Engineering Manager to lead the technical strategy and architecture for wire harness and subassembly design across their autonomous vehicle platform. This is a hands-on role that owns the full lifecycle of harness engineering—from high-speed, low-voltage, and high-power system design through manufacturing scale-up and field deployment.
You will set design standards, review processes, and design-for-manufacturability (DFM) practices for harness schematics and system interconnect diagrams. You'll drive make/buy and supplier strategy for harness manufacturing, owning relationships with key external partners and ensuring scale-up readiness. The role includes leading trade studies on harness architecture (topology, routing, connector strategy, EMI/signal integrity tradeoffs) with system-level cost, weight, and reliability impact.
Key responsibilities include owning full program lifecycle governance—technical reviews, DVP&R, outsourced cable manufacturing, qualification testing, and release. You'll lead or oversee root cause analysis on complex electrical system issues and drive corrective and preventive action across teams. You'll define and champion automated harness validation tooling and test strategy, and represent harness engineering in cross-functional and executive-level design reviews with Software, Mechanical, Manufacturing, Systems, and external suppliers.
You will mentor and provide technical leadership to harness and electrical engineers while directly managing a harness engineering team. This is a hands-on position—you'll be comfortable debugging subsystems in the shop and driving architecture decisions in the boardroom.
Required qualifications include a BS or MS in Electrical or Mechanical Engineering (or equivalent), 10+ years of hardware development in automotive, aerospace, or safety-critical industries, and deep expertise in electrical harness design at the system level. You must have proven experience setting design/quality standards, mentoring or leading teams, and strong troubleshooting skills with hands-on root cause analysis. Expert familiarity with IPC quality standards (IPC/WHMA-A-620) and experience implementing low-level hardware buses (CAN, Ethernet, LIN) are essential. Demonstrated ability to lead supplier negotiations and manage external manufacturing partnerships is required.
