Head of Engineering at Nevados – Oakland, California
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About This Position
Reporting to the COO, the Head of Engineering is the senior-most technical authority at Nevados, responsible for end-to-end product integrity, engineering, execution, and organizational effectiveness. This role ensures our products meet the highest standards of performance, reliability, and manufacturability while aligning engineering efforts with business objectives.
This is a hands-on leadership role requiring deep systems thinking, strong technical judgment, and the ability to drive clarity, speed, and accountability across a multidisciplinary engineering organization.
Location: Hybrid—with expectation of majority time spent in our Oakland office to work alongside our C-Suite and engineering teams.
Technical Leadership & Governance
Serve as the final technical authority on product design, performance, and engineering standards
Lead design reviews, ensuring rigor, cross-functional alignment, and timely decision-making
Own system-level integration across mechanical, structural, electrical, and software components
Engineering Organization & Structure
Optimize engineering team structure to improve speed, clarity, and accountability
Evolve the engineering organization and team structure to support clarity, alignment, and effective execution as the company scales, including thoughtful placement of key functions (e.g., embedded systems, structural engineering)
- Serve as a mentor and partner to engineering leaders, supporting their continued growth in leadership, strategic thinking, and cross-functional collaboration while fostering a culture of accountability and continuous improvement
- Guide leaders in prioritization, resource planning, and team development within a resource-conscious environment, ensuring focus on the highest-impact work while building a scalable, resilient organization
Drive product strategy and roadmap to amplify market competitiveness
- Drive cost reduction initiatives across the product portfolio
Implement a design sprint approach to accelerate development cycles and time-to-market
Ensure strong alignment between engineering, product, and commercial priorities
- Provide quantitative, informative and frequent department and product development reporting
- Institute rapid and lean design methods with an AI-forward mindset
- Ensure engineering decisions are grounded in data, testing, and real-world conditions
DFM & Commercialization
Oversee design for manufacturing (DFM) to ensure products are scalable, cost-effective, and production-ready
Partner with operations and supply chain to accelerate product launches
Fundraising & External Support
Support fundraising efforts by articulating technical strategy, product roadmap, and differentiation to investors and stakeholders
15+ years of engineering experience, with deep expertise in mechanical, structural, and/or systems engineering
Proven track record as a technical lead or Chief Engineer/Head of Engineering on complex hardware systems from concept through commercialization
Demonstrated ability to act as a final decision-maker on critical technical tradeoffs
Experience leading multidisciplinary teams (mechanical, structural, electrical, software, embedded systems)
Strong background in system-level design, reliability, and performance optimization
Proven success driving cost reduction, DFM, and scalable product development
Experience integrating testing and validation (e.g., wind tunnel or similar studies) into product design
Solar, solar tracker, or adjacent renewable/infrastructure experience strongly preferred
Strong communication skills with the ability to engage executive leadership and external stakeholders
Engineering operates with clear ownership, speed, and accountability
Product development cycles are faster, with improved cost and manufacturability outcomes
New products are delivered on schedule and perform reliably in the field
Technical credibility is strengthened with customers, partners, and investors
$250,000 - $300,000 a year