Hardware product manager - full-time - porto

Hardware Product Manager

At Okra Solar, we’re on a mission to bring Power to the People by unlocking opportunities through energy access for everyone in the world.

Over 650 million people still live without electricity. At a time where technology such as mobile devices, productive agritech and AI are becoming more accessible than ever, we believe that access to energy is the first step toward opportunity and growth.

That’s why we build our Mesh Grid technology that energizes off-grid households at a fraction of the cost of the other solutions. We build the hardware and software, that we sell to local energy companies who deploy our tech to deliver affordable, reliable electricity as a service last-mile communities.

In order to execute on the mission to 100% energy access for all - we are looking for an experienced and hardware product manager to work alongside our team in Porto and ensure we can design and scale several hardware electronics products in some of the hardest to reach parts of the world.

If you’re excited about owning real hardware (cost, quality, failures and all) to create tangible impact and want to help shape the future of energy access, you could be the right person to join us.

Responsibilities:

- Product requirements: interpret and translate customer/regulatory/commercial needs into functional requirements and collaborate with engineering to translate into technical requirements.

- Making tradeoffs, managing risks, prioritizing and executing the vision for the products you manage specifically navigating the pressures from engineering, supply chain and commercial and communicate clearly and proactively to all stakeholders.

- Bring a de-risking, cost-down, reliability, DFM, and scalability mindset from the get-go accountable for quality and field performance, define failure/warranty KPIs, lead failure analysis efforts.

- Own target cost, BOM strategy, and margin assumptions.

- Work daily with hardware, firmware, manufacturing, supply chain, QA, and customer teams and build strong relationships.

- Gather feedback from customers, internal teams, and stakeholders to iterate on product features and enhancements, demonstrating a proactive approach to continuous improvement.

- Ensure market-specific regulatory/safety/certification requirements are aligned on and met.

Required Skills:

- >5+ years in hardware product management, ideally in power electronics, energy systems, embedded, consumer hardware, or industrial IoT.

- Experience in early-stage companies, startups, or fast-moving environments.

- Experience with volume manufacturing - yields, qualification criteria, supported on technical negotiations and supplier selection, ODM/OEM engagement.

- Product fundamentals - clear, testable requirement docs, roadmaps, milestones, feature releases.

- Decision making experience, especially in uncertainty - making tough decisions based on imperfect data, juggle tradeoffs across competing forces, evaluate and owning risk, comfortable saying no.

- Strategic intuition - understanding how the industry landscape is evolving, how the product can be positioned.

- Leadership and Communication - Ability to not only make the tradeoffs but communicate them effectively with data, inspire confidence and trust, give people clarity and be able to guide discussions effectively.

- Ability to use basic hand tools and test measurement equipment - should be comfortable pulling apart a product.

Nice-to-Have:

- Experience in off-grid/rural or emerging markets, especially the solar energy sector.

- Experience manufacturing in China.

- Bachelor degree in relevant engineering or science field (e.g. electrical, mechanical, telecom, physics), however we put more value on your real-world experience.

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.

- Professional Growth: With mentorship from our investors 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.

If you are interested, apply now!