Senior Mechanical Engineering Manager

Our Mission  

SPAN develops products that accelerate the rapid adoption of renewable energy in the home. The flagship SPAN Smart Panel is the first true evolution for the traditional home electric panel, harnessing enhanced technology for metering, monitoring, and control. An expanded product suite of intelligent, integrated solutions radically lowers the cost and complexity of energy upgrades–including solar, batteries and EVs–empowering homeowners to be active, resilient, and informed players in the energy market.

At SPAN, we believe that powering your home with clean energy should be a simple and delightful experience that is at its essence human-centered and technology-forward.

Our core values include:

•  Making home energy more accessible, intuitive, and convenient.

• Enabling homes and vehicles to be powered by the sun.

• Building resilient homes with reliable power.

• All-electric everything.

• A more flexible & distributed grid.

The Role 

We are seeking a passionate and driven engineering manager to lead the development of market-leading hardware through all stages of a product’s development lifecycle. As a mechanical engineering manager, you will lead the execution of multiple programs and be accountable for meeting timelines and milestones. Candidates should be comfortable and excited to grow a team of highly skilled mechanical engineers to advance Span’s product portfolio. In this role, you will drive efforts to optimize our products, grow Span’s IP, and collaborate with our electrical, firmware, manufacturing, and reliability teams to implement technologies that electrify the home and delight our customers.

Expect ~4 days a week in the office in San Francisco. The Mechanical team’s success is based on tight collaboration with the cross-functional team, face-to-face meetings, and hands-on work with the prototyping and testing teams in our lab. 

Our Products are extremely complex mechanically (thermals, safety, and reliabilty as difficult constraints), and you’d be responsible for providing the technical direction, decision making and to growing the team and executing on complex projects within tight timelines.

Responsibilities  

In this role, you will:

• Lead a mechanical engineering team of ~5 and oversee the development of the mechanical engineering for tight product schedules.

• Grow the ME program at Span to support development of mulitple new product developments and sustaining projects simultaneously.

• Set and measure goals for the mechanical engineering team. Lead mentoring and leadership growth.

• Support executive staff with business analysis of research and development projects and manufacturing options e.g. outsource versus internal to Span and which components are ripe for vertical integration.

• Define system architecture and create engineering requirements for components and systems.

• Collaborate with internal and external teams.

• Hands-on hardware analysis, bring-up, and thermal optimization. 

• Work with contract manufacturers to have parts made to specification, to improve quality, and to improve yield.

• Own full product lifecycle: specification, design, prototype, certification, reliability, validation, and manufacturing.

• Step in to support IC work when needed - Designing and modeling components and assemblies, building, design validation, working with the part and assembly suppliers, etc. 

About You

Required Qualifications

We are seeking a seasoned mechanical engineer or engineering manager who has:

• BS in Mechanical Engineering or a similar field.

• Have 10+ years of experience developing hardware products for production. You have seen the full production cycle from ideation to manufacturing on multiple products. 3+ years leading direct reports.

• Have experience in static/dynamic structural, modal and thermal analysis using hand calculations as well as FEA software.

• Effectively communicate technical concepts, ideas and knowledge to other team members, including mentoring junior members of the team.

• Significant experience in Solidworks 3D CAD, 2D detailed drawings.

• Hands-on approach to hardware bring-up,  whether it be building a prototype or performing testing.

• Experience working closely with contract manufacturers and leading design for manufacturing.

• Remain engaged, proactive and positive in tough circumstances, owning assignments and taking full accountability for overall team success.

• Are passionate about renewable energy and energy storage.

Bonus Qualifications

We would love to hire someone who has:

• Experience leading a team, guiding multiple programs to success from the concept stage through manufacturing, applying a disciplined project development methodology.

• Experience developing performance validation, environmental testing, and reliability testing.

• Knowledge of national and international safety and regulatory requirements such as UL, National Electric Code(NEC), IEC, and ISO.

• Design experience with products that connect to the electrical grid, NEMA 3R enclosures, and/or complex thermal requirements.

The U.S. base salary range for this position is $175,000 - $230,000 plus benefits, equity and variable compensation for Sales-related roles. This range represents SPAN’s good faith estimate of competitively-priced salary for the role based on national, real-time industry data from companies of a similar growth stage. This range reflects minimum and maximum new hire salaries for the role in San Francisco county. Within the range, individual pay is determined by location and individual factors including relevant skills, experience and education or training. This range correlates to the relative level of the candidate we believe we need for the role and may require an adjustment for candidates of a different level. 

Your recruiter can share more about the specific salary range for the location this role is based during the hiring process. 

Life at SPAN

SPAN embraces diversity and equal opportunity in a serious way. We are committed to building a team that represents a variety of backgrounds, perspectives, and skills. 

Headquartered in San Francisco’s vibrant SoMa neighborhood, we are an eclectic group of creative thinkers who value open communication, teamwork, and a ‘make it happen’ approach to addressing complex challenges. 

Our CEO, Arch Rao⁠—former head of the Tesla Powerwall team⁠—fosters an energetic and collaborative environment, with a strong emphasis on maintaining work-life-balance across the organization.

We’re hiring talented individuals who are driven by success and are passionate about shaping the future of renewable energy. If that sounds like you, we’d love for you to consider joining the rapidly growing team at SPAN.

The Perks:

⚡ Competitive compensation + equity grants at a well-funded, venture-backed company

⚡ Comprehensive benefits: 100% employee premiums for base plans on medical, dental, vision with options for additional coverage.  Parental leave up to six (6) months depending on eligibility

⚡ Comfortable, sunny office space located near BART and Caltrain public transit

⚡ Strong focus on team building and company culture: Employee Resource Groups, monthly social events, SPANcakes recognition breakfast, lunch, and learns

⚡ Flexible hours, one holiday per month, and unlimited PTO

Interested in joining our team? Apply today and we’ll be in touch with the next steps!