Director of Hardware
New York, NY
Full Time
Experienced
Role: Director of Hardware
Mission: We’re on a mission to make Raycon the most loved electronics brand in the world where every product feels joyful, effortless, and personal. We're hiring a Director of Hardware to run Raycon's product engine: a fast, capital-disciplined motion that launches 10+ new product bets a year, scales the proven winners, and shuts down the rest. You'll own the lineup strategy, the product briefs, the component decisions, and the post-launch product health loop, while personally leading core categories as the senior PM. You'll be managing many SKUs in parallel rather than spending years on one. Speed, judgment, and ruthless prioritization matter more than perfect plans. This role reports to the VP of Product and is positioned to grow into broader product and engineering leadership over time.
Growth: Profitable growth with 5+ million customers, international expansion underway, and an expanding product portfolio across audio and adjacent categories.
Location: New York, NY. Mon to Fri, 9 AM to 6 PM EST. Hybrid: 1 day remote (Monday) and 4 days in office (Tuesday to Friday).
Compensation: Competitive base, discretionary bonus, and equity.
Team: Reports to the VP of Product. Active in a player-coach role: manages the PM team while personally owning our most key products. Has a clear runway to eventually oversee Engineering.
Why Now: Raycon is at the inflection point where lineup coherence and product quality become our moat. Our product team mission is clear: build a fast, cost-efficient product engine that can launch 10+ new products, scale proven winners, and shut down the rest. We need a Director of Product who can run that engine without losing the bar on quality, drive our winners toward 4.3+ ratings, and bring structure to a portfolio that is rapidly expanding across tiers (Essential, Everyday, Fitness, Pro) and form factors.
You'd be a fit if: 6+ years in consumer hardware product, with 2+ years managing PMs or program leads. This role is title-flexible. Strong candidates may come from Product Management, Hardware Product Leadership, or senior engineering with program ownership.
Interview Process:
1. Initial Call: Intro with a team member focused on culture fit and your experience (30 minutes)
2. Case Study: A practical exercise tailored to the role, designed to highlight how you think and create
3. Final On-site Round: Visit us in the office, meet the team, and learn more about our cross-functional team leaders
Mission: We’re on a mission to make Raycon the most loved electronics brand in the world where every product feels joyful, effortless, and personal. We're hiring a Director of Hardware to run Raycon's product engine: a fast, capital-disciplined motion that launches 10+ new product bets a year, scales the proven winners, and shuts down the rest. You'll own the lineup strategy, the product briefs, the component decisions, and the post-launch product health loop, while personally leading core categories as the senior PM. You'll be managing many SKUs in parallel rather than spending years on one. Speed, judgment, and ruthless prioritization matter more than perfect plans. This role reports to the VP of Product and is positioned to grow into broader product and engineering leadership over time.
Growth: Profitable growth with 5+ million customers, international expansion underway, and an expanding product portfolio across audio and adjacent categories.
Location: New York, NY. Mon to Fri, 9 AM to 6 PM EST. Hybrid: 1 day remote (Monday) and 4 days in office (Tuesday to Friday).
Compensation: Competitive base, discretionary bonus, and equity.
Team: Reports to the VP of Product. Active in a player-coach role: manages the PM team while personally owning our most key products. Has a clear runway to eventually oversee Engineering.
Why Now: Raycon is at the inflection point where lineup coherence and product quality become our moat. Our product team mission is clear: build a fast, cost-efficient product engine that can launch 10+ new products, scale proven winners, and shut down the rest. We need a Director of Product who can run that engine without losing the bar on quality, drive our winners toward 4.3+ ratings, and bring structure to a portfolio that is rapidly expanding across tiers (Essential, Everyday, Fitness, Pro) and form factors.
You'd be a fit if: 6+ years in consumer hardware product, with 2+ years managing PMs or program leads. This role is title-flexible. Strong candidates may come from Product Management, Hardware Product Leadership, or senior engineering with program ownership.
- Shipped multiple consumer audio products at scale
- Deep experience working with OEM and JDM partners overseas. Comfortable managing many products in parallel, not just one deep program
- Track record of moving customer-perceived quality (Amazon ratings, return rates, NPS, review sentiment), not just internal QA metrics
- Have launched, scaled, or killed products based on early signal. Ruthless about applying kill criteria when the data says stop
- Engineering degree preferred (ME, CS, Acoustics, EE) but not required. Fluency matters more than the credential
- Comfortable making tradeoff calls with incomplete data and defending the call later
- You get sh*t done when things are messy, ambiguous, or broken
- Clear, opinionated written communication. Your briefs, PRDs, and vendor emails leave no ambiguity
- Run the Product Engine: Own the cadence of 10+ test launches per year. Set the gates, the kill criteria, and the capital envelope per bet. Most bets should die. The few that prove demand and unit economics get scaled.
- Scale Proven Winners: Identify which products have earned investment. Drive toward 4.3+ star ratings through targeted R&D, component upgrades, firmware quality, and fit improvements
- Product Briefs & Requirements: Set the bar on upfront thinking. Every product starts with a tight brief: customer pain, target buyer, must-win features, anti-features, cost target, quality bar, kill criteria.
- Component & Architecture Decisions: Lead component selection across drivers, chipsets, batteries, mics, and materials
- Player-Coach: Personally lead core categories as the senior PM. Own the spec, the schedule, and the tradeoffs on our most strategic category.
- Launch Readiness & Post-Launch Health: Own the gate criteria for EVT, DVT, PVT, and MP. Own the first-90-day product health dashboard on every launch.
- People Leadership: Manage, coach, and grow the PM team and design contractor. Set the standard for what good PM work looks like at Raycon.
- Cross-Functional Leadership: Bring clarity across Engineering, ID, Ops, Marketing, and CX
- Reviewing weekly Amazon, return, and BSR data, digging deeply into potential root causes of customer feedback, and driving clear go-forward resolutions with team members
- Running a Raycon Labs product session: which two of these five concepts get validation, and which three get killed
- Reviewing component selection for an upcoming product refresh and working directly with the component vendors to drive quality
- Working with our vendor on a cost-down for a Fitness SKU heading into DVT
- Coaching a PM through a launch sequencing call with Marketing on a Q4 retail drop
- 10+ new product bets launched per year, with clean kill or scale decisions on each
- Every proven winner in the lineup at a 4.3+ Amazon rating within 12 months
- Average launch cost per bet inside the capital envelope (sub $25K all-in per test)
- PM team retained, developed, and producing visibly better specs and decisions quarter over quarter
- 50% team discount on Raycon products
- $1,500 annual L&D stipend + $200 for cultural events
- Monthly team lunch, snack budget, March Madness bracket
- Impact: Your products directly shape customer experience and brand trust
- Autonomy: Own high impact decisions and product outcomes
- Team: Grounded, ambitious, and kind coworkers who get sh*t done
Interview Process:
1. Initial Call: Intro with a team member focused on culture fit and your experience (30 minutes)
2. Case Study: A practical exercise tailored to the role, designed to highlight how you think and create
3. Final On-site Round: Visit us in the office, meet the team, and learn more about our cross-functional team leaders
Raycon is committed to fair and equitable compensation practices. Salary ranges are determined through alignment with market data. Base salary offered is determined by a number of factors including the candidate’s experience, qualifications, and skills. This role is also eligible for bonus compensation and employee benefits.
NYC Base Salary Range: $110,000 - $170,000 USD
Equal Employment Opportunity Statement: Raycon is an Equal Opportunity Employer. We believe that no one should be discriminated against because of their differences, such as age, disability, ethnicity, gender, gender identity and expression, religion or sexual orientation. All employment decisions shall be made without regard to age, race, creed, color, religion, sex, national origin, ancestry, disability status, veteran status, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, genetic information, marital status, citizenship status or any other basis as protected by federal, state, or local law.
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