Director of Engineering @ Carbine Coffee

About us:

A memorable cup of coffee starts with great coffee beans fresh roasted to perfection. Carbine Coffee was founded in 2016 and is on a mission to bring the latest in hardware automation, IoT, and AI to coffee roasting so that businesses can source and perfectly roast the best coffees in the world. We are seed-stage and venture-backed, looking for candidates who want to help build the future of the $70 billion US coffee market!

As the Director of Engineering, you will join our small and dedicated full-time team of five, which currently consists of the three co-founders (CEO, CTO, and Mechanical Engineer) as well as our COO (spent last 10 years at a food technology company with over 20,000 placed machines and $100M+ in revenue) and recently-hired Director of Coffee. We have 3 functional prototypes roasting great coffee on a daily basis and are ready to take the platform to the next level with a “scrappy not crappy” attitude and a belief that we are limited only by the scope of our imagination.

The role:

You will be responsible for leading our hardware development effort, which means owning the technical challenges and making sure that we are matching the proper resources with the problems we are trying to solve. We have been working with an external product development firm and industrial design consultancy, and you will oversee those efforts with the CTO/COO while also directing the refinement of our “roast core” internally, translating the qualitative requirements of our “roast master” (Director of Coffee) into engineering specifications. Roasting is achieved through electric convection so air flow and heat transfer are primary concerns, in addition to building the control systems necessary to effectively modulate the “roast profile” (time/temperature curve) of the beans while also calibrating against local ambient conditions. You will be the main driver of our iterative development loops through design/build/test/break.

Our ideal candidate will have intellectual curiosity and engineering rigor, moving fluidly between the needs of rapid prototyping and long-term development for production. You have taken two or more products from ideation to launch, and know all the pitfalls of the process, taking actions predictively and instinctively. You will shape the engineering culture of the company, and, as a result of our size, of the company at large. You will be a strong functional leader and motivator, an excellent project manager, and a technology advocate within the company. Ideally, you have a strong background in thermo-fluidics, or know how to engage the necessary experts. Lastly, you know intuitively what is at stake and how to continuously prioritize and reorganize around the larger objectives and timelines.

Our ideal candidate has:

• Demonstrated ability to inspire and lead other engineers by technical example
• 7-10 years of industry experience
• A history of bringing products to the marketplace (2 or more full development cycles)
• Masters or PhD in ME, EE, Physics, or related/relevant field
• Hands-on prototyping skills, with an inclination to create and debug through physical fabrication
• Expert Solidworks modeling skills including solids, assemblies and drawings
• Strong understanding of component selection criteria, and design for reliability and manufacturability
• Demonstrated experience in and comfortable with all phases of the product development lifecycle including design, implementation, debug, verification, validation, and transfer to manufacturing
• Experience working through and completing regulatory agency approvals on multiple products, preferably including UL, CE, EMF and NSF
• Excellent project management, planning and change management skills
• Ability to communicate effectively across all levels and organizations
• A passion for creating a robust and reliable product

You will:

• Work closely with our internal team and external consultants to translate qualitative requirements for coffee into technical specifications
• Understand design goals and evaluate the technical challenges and possibilities in resolving them
• Translate product concepts into fully-developed, mechanically-reliable and manufacturable solutions
• Use SolidWorks to generate and document designs for prototyping either in-house or with external vendors
• Be prepared to move the design into manufacturing either through internal hires or external partners
• Travel to contract manufacturers/vendors on an as-needed basis
• Plan and lead all aspects of the engineering effort to meet milestones and launch timelines
• Track and generate associated intellectual property
• Organize, manage and review engineering specifications for sub-systems
• Provide support and assistance in the development of efficient and high quality production processes

What we can offer:

• We are passionate about what we do and hope you are too!
• More (hopefully good) coffee then anyone needs. Be popular amongst friends :)
• Trust in making the right choices around the tools needed to do the job
• Health benefits and meaningful stock options
• On-staff dogs and free parking
• Currently located in San Francisco/SoMa

Carbine Coffee is an equal opportunity employer and values diversity at our company. We do not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, color, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, age, marital status, veteran status or disability status.