Lead Systems Engineer

Job Description

This is the technical and people lead for the Devices (hardware) engineering team. We are looking for a hands-on, senior systems engineer who has spent the last decade building hardware products end to end, and is ready to lead, grow, and run a team. You own - "are we building the right way, with the right team?" And more specifically, ensuring the products work end-to-end, from concept to mass production to field results, managing cost and quality outcomes.

The Systems Engineering Lead bring power electronics, RF, firmware, mechanical, thermal, and manufacturing into coherent products. You lead the engineering team day to day, drive technical decisions, partner closely with operations and product, and own the process that lets us scale without losing pace.

Responsibilities

• Accountable for Engineering Outcomes: lower yield losses over time, shorter feedback loops between field and engineering. Reduce surprises late in builds, better handover from engineering to manufacturing. Own the closed loop from field failure to root cause to design fix to production rollout.
• Engineering Operations and Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) : Implement and drive adoption of engineering processes, workflows, and best practices that drive continuous improvement in engineering quality, efficiency, and delivery timelines
  • Enable effective & efficient product life cycle management, BOM control, change-order discipline, review rituals, documentation, version control, FW & HW release processes, documentation, bug tracking, quality control.
  • Minimum process needed for scale, without slowing innovation.
• Requirements and Test Standards: establish and maintain system-level requirements and internal test standards across products, including PCBAs, enclosure, cabling, labels, RF, firmware interfaces, batteries, and accessories. Ensure traceability from requirement to verification.
  • Stress testing / reliability testing / accelerated testing strategies
  • Own certification and compliance projects
• Leadership and collaboration: lead the engineering team across disciplines (power electronics, RF, firmware, mechanical, test, sustaining). Set technical direction, allocate work, run reviews, unblock the team.
  • Constant, low-friction, close collaboration with supply chain, manufacturing.
  • Translate product priorities and roadmap into engineering work.
  • Surface engineering trade-offs and constraints and communicate early with stakeholders.
• Resource Planning & Growth: Manage team capacity, skill mix, and gaps, and map out team growth. Go out and build the team we need.
  • Leverage short-term contractor / outsourced resourcing when it makes sense. Be creative in how to solve engineering resourcing challenges and gaps.
• Performance Management: Conduct regular performance reviews, career development planning, and technical skill development for team members
  • Define what expectations are and what technical growth looks like
  • Set culture around decision making, failure analysis, risk
• Strategic Thinking: Ensure we are building a culture of "engineering excellence", think proactively and manage engineering risks, foster innovation, and how the products can mature to meet the growth of the company.
  • Make strategy executable and safe from an engineering perspective.
• Technical Direction and Contribution: Review major technical decisions. Stay hands-on as a senior IC on the highest leverage technical problems: system architecture, critical subsystem design (power stage, RF/mesh), thorny field-failure root cause, and design reviews. Time split between IC and management work will flex based on team state.

Technical Skills

• Hardware engineering (electronics, embedded systems, or similar). Core technologies we implement:
  • Power electronics: DC-DC converter design (buck, boost, flyback, LLC), MPPT, battery charge and discharge control, low-voltage DC bus design, inverter reliability, efficiency and thermal trade-offs.
  • RF and wireless: sub-GHz mesh networking (IEEE 802.15.4 / Wi-SUN), antenna integration, cellular backhaul (2G/3G/4G), VSAT
  • Battery systems: Li-ion battery management, safety, lifecycle, and field replacement considerations
  • System integration: driving design trade-offs across manufacturing, test, thermal, performance, reliability, cost, and electrical stakeholders
• Product development lifecycle - from concept through manufacturing handover, including DFM, DFT, and contract-manufacturer engagement.
• Firmware and hardware release processes
• Version control, coding guidelines, bug tracking systems
• Quality control and yield loss analysis
• Engineering process design and implementation (PLM, review rituals, documentation standards)
  • Requirements engineering and test standard development
• System-level verification and validation: test plan design, requirements traceability, HIL setups.
• Field reliability and remote diagnostics: designing for harsh environments and remote debuggability via telemetry.
• Compliance and certification process for power electronics and wireless products.

Soft Skills

• People leadership & performance management - building trust, running 1-on-1s and reviews, setting expectations, defining growth paths, providing mentorship
• Cross-functional collaboration: comfortable operating as a peer to operations, supply chain, manufacturing, and product leaders. The kind of person who naturally pulls adjacent teams into the same room as engineering and aligns them on outcomes. Strong working relationships across functions are the difference between shipping and not.
• Hiring and resource planning - building and retaining high-performing teams
• Communication - bridging field, engineering, and manufacturing
• Willingness to learn: Openness to new knowledge, techniques, and continuous improvement.
• Balanced drive: Passionate about your work while maintaining a healthy pace to avoid burnout and sustain excellence.
• Transparency and openness: Open to sharing and receiving ideas and feedback candidly.
• Integrity and respect: Ability to make ethical decisions even during challenges, acting with honesty and respect.

Required Experience

• Systems or Electrical Engineering: significant experience (around 10 years) in systems, electrical, or hardware engineering roles, with a proven track record of taking products from concept through manufacturing and into the field.
• Leadership: experience leading or managing small engineering teams (direct reports or technical leads). Comfortable as a hands-on leader who scales into broader management as the team grows.
• End-to-End Product Delivery: has personally taken at least one hardware product from concept through volume manufacturing and into field deployment
  • Experience with contract manufacturing, hardware deployed in challenging field environments, and closing the loop between field failures and engineering improvements.
• Technical Background: Strong foundation in electronics, embedded systems. Hands-on design and debug experience with power electronics (converters, battery systems, inverters) AND wireless or RF systems.
  • Bonus: distributed energy, off-grid power, EV charging, micro-grids, or related
• Process Management: Experience implementing engineering processes, project management methodologies, and quality systems
  • PLM Implementation Experience: rolled out PLM, change-control, or BOM-management process in a scaling hardware company, and gotten engineers to actually use it
• Team Development: Proven track record of hiring, developing, and retaining high-performing engineering talent
• Business Understanding: Ability to translate business requirements into engineering objectives and resource plans

Benefits At Okra

🕒 Flexible Location & Hours

We're an output-focused organisation, which means that for the most part, you can choose where and when you work as long as your team has been communicated to and is on board with it. Most commonly, we ask everyone to be in the office at least 2 to 3 days a week to foster connections.

📈 Professional Growth

With mentorship from our investors (At One Ventures, Schneider Electric) and a range of experienced leaders and change-makers in our network, you get the opportunity to take on leadership responsibilities.

🛡️ We've Got You Covered

Cover for work travel, health insurance, sick leave, and equipment.

🌴 Unlimited Paid Time Off

We burn bright, not out - we offer unlimited paid time off so you can rest, recharge, support your loved ones, and bring your best self to work.

🌈 Dynamic & Diverse Workplace

You'll work in a fast-paced startup environment with multinational staff - expect to learn a lot while finding creative solutions to complex problems, all while enjoying a great office vibe.

🍼 Flexible Parental Leave

At Okra, we support parents with fully paid, flexible leave: +60 days in Portugal, 120 in Nigeria, up to 178 in China. Take it your way - before or after birth, in blocks or part-time. Your career won't stall; we make sure family and growth go hand in hand.