Relocation opportunity to Lisbon, Portugal.
We are at Neera on a mission to restore human recovery by turning neuroscience and acoustics into everyday wellbeing. We empower people to sleep deeply, regulate stress effortlessly, and live with calm, clarity, and energy.
Neera is a complex hardware-software platform that includes multiple hardware units; including a “brain” unit, sensing and actuation modules, as well as a mobile app and backend infrastructure.
With the USA as our primary market, we move fast, operate lean, and aim to build a globally iconic brand.
As the NPI / Hardware Project Manager at Neera, you will be the execution engine behind bringing our first product from advanced prototype to market-ready production. You will coordinate hardware, firmware, software, industrial design, suppliers, factories, technical consultants, testing, certification preparation, and manufacturing readiness - making sure every dependency is visible, every owner is clear, and every critical decision moves fast.
Your role is to turn product vision into shipped reality: a complex hardware-software wellness system delivered with speed, discipline, quality, and calm operational clarity.
Ensure delivery of a market-ready Neera hardware-software platform by January 2027, with prototype builds, engineering validation, testing, supplier readiness, production documentation, and NPI milestones moving on schedule and with clear ownership.
Factories, suppliers, and external technical partners are tightly coordinated: open issues are tracked, technical decisions are documented, samples and components arrive on time, and manufacturing risks are surfaced early.
Weekly execution rhythm with clear deliverables. Real-time reporting into risks and bottlenecks — enabling fast, high-quality decisions.
Product requirements, engineering decisions, BOM status, test plans, acceptance criteria, change requests, supplier inputs, and manufacturing-related documentation are centralized, current, and easy to trust.
Create a high-clarity operating rhythm across Slack, Jira, Google Workspace and other tools, so the team always knows priorities, blockers, owners, and next decisions.
Support cross-location team coordination and, where needed, operational preparation for the Serbian team’s relocation to Portugal, without losing focus on product delivery.
Be highly proactive and anticipate needs before they surface. Operate as a trusted extension of the founders — protect their focus, eliminate noise, and ensure their time is spent only on high-leverage strategic decisions.
Build and maintain the integrated delivery plan across hardware, firmware, software, industrial design, prototyping, testing, suppliers, certification preparation, manufacturing readiness, and launch-critical milestones.
Own the NPI execution rhythm: prototype build planning, EVT/DVT/PVT milestone tracking, sample readiness, BOM status, engineering change requests, validation plans, factory feedback loops, and production readiness checklists.
Coordinate prototype builds and the logistics of materials, components, samples, lab tests, factory inputs, technical consultant feedback, and development units needed for engineering, validation, demos, and user testing.
Ensure PRDs are well-maintained; own documentation governance, including technical documentation, test protocols, quality and acceptance documentation, and manufacturing- and supplier-related documents.
Own resource allocation, dependencies, and trade-offs across the Engineering team. Identify risks early, push for decisions, and remove blockers fast.
Maintain clear open-issue tracking across hardware, firmware, app, suppliers, and manufacturing; ensure every issue has an owner, priority, due date, decision path, and closure criteria.
Act as the operational interface between Neera’s founders, engineering internal team, factories, suppliers, industrial/mechanical/electrical consultants, certification partners, and other external technical contributors.
Strong grasp of lean/agile execution in early-stage environments, with the ability to adapt software-style speed to hardware realities: lead times, build cycles, supplier constraints, testing, and manufacturing gates.
Deep proficiency with AI-first tooling and automation (ChatGPT, Claude, Cursor, n8n, Zapier, etc.).
Proven experience managing complex hardware or hardware-software product development programs, ideally from prototype through NPI, validation, supplier coordination, and production readiness.
Hands-on experience coordinating with factories, contract manufacturers, suppliers, engineering consultants, or testing/certification partners.
Strong technical fluency: able to understand mechanical, electrical, firmware, app, testing, and manufacturing discussions well enough to track decisions, risks, dependencies, and next steps.
Strong documentation discipline and ability to bring structure to ambiguity.
Ability to coordinate multiple external vendors, prototype iterations, and cross-functional dependencies without losing momentum.
Deep proficiency with Jira, Slack, Google Workspace, Notion/Confluence or similar tools — and the ability to turn them into a clear operating system for a fast-moving technical team.
High ownership, calm persistence, and strong follow-through: you can hold many moving parts without becoming chaotic, passive, or overly bureaucratic.
Excellent written and verbal communication: concise, structured, direct, and able to create clarity across founders, engineers, suppliers, and external partners.
You are a strong fit if you enjoy complex physical products, moving fast with incomplete information, bringing order to ambiguity, pushing gently but firmly for decisions, and working close to founders in a high-intensity early-stage environment.
Experience with consumer electronics, wellness, sleep, audio, wearables, robotics, IoT, or connected devices.
Experience with contract manufacturers or suppliers in USA, LATAM or Asia.
Familiarity with certification, reliability testing, QA processes, or manufacturing quality documentation.
Experience in founder-led startups moving from prototype to launch.
Send your CV to hello@neerasleep.com, with a short note on which role and what you’d want to own.