Director Supply Chain & Hardware Operations (m/f/d)

The role

The Director of Supply Chain & Hardware Operations will own the path from release-ready design to shipping QA'd units to customers. This role involves moving production to external contract manufacturers and managing supplier quality, planning, and logistics.

What you will do

• Move gripper, cell, cabinet and final assembly to external contract manufacturers and EMS partners
• Take frozen designs into repeatable volume production including ramp plans, build and work instructions and jigs
• Run a first pilot build of grippers outside the facility within the first 90 days
• Select, negotiate with and manage suppliers including commercial terms and capacity planning
• Build redundancy for critical single points of failure
• Own incoming inspection, supplier quality, first article inspection, PPM targets and the manufacturing side of the RMA process
• Build S&OP, forecasting and buffer stock
• Reduce supplier lead times and keep demo and fleet hardware available
• Own shipping and import and export across the EU and US
• Own hardware unit cost and bring COGS down over time

Required qualifications

• 10+ years in supply chain, manufacturing or hardware operations, including several years in a leadership role
• Track record of taking a complex electromechanical product from prototype to hundreds of units per year
• Experience standing up outsourced contract manufacturing, supplier quality, logistics and inventory from scratch in a scaleup or growth-stage company
• Degree in engineering, supply chain, operations or a related field, or equivalent practical experience
• Hands-on supplier management, including selection, negotiation and supplier quality
• Manufacturing quality, NPI and industrialization experience
• Supply and demand planning and inventory management
• Comfortable installing operating discipline, accountability and KPIs in a fast-moving, resource-constrained environment
• Fluent English
• Willingness to travel to suppliers and customer sites

Nice to have

• Experience in robotics, warehouse automation, AMRs or autonomous vehicles
• Experience turning demos and pilots into repeatable production deployments
• Experience working with product engineering on design-to-cost and DfM
• German fluency

Benefits

• Competitive salary
• Equity
• Flexible PTO
• Collaborative, high-ownership culture

About the company

sereact builds the intelligence that lets robots sense, reason, and act in the real world. Their technology closes automation gaps for industrial settings like warehouses and factories.