Hardware Project Manager – AI Data Center

About the Company

DriveNets is a leader in large-scale networking solutions for AI infrastructure and service providers. The company’s disaggregated networking architecture transforms the economics of large-scale infrastructures while maximizing performance, utilization, and operational efficiency. Its high-performance AI fabric maximizes GPU utilization and accelerates deployments by optimizing the AI stack end-to-end, resulting in higher tokens-per-second and lower cost-per-token. DriveNets’ solutions power production networks for global tier-1 operators like AT&T and Comcast, and scale multi-vendor AI infrastructures at foundation model labs, NeoClouds, and enterprises.

Responsibilities and Duties

Join a new, fast-growing group at DriveNets chartered with building hardware infrastructure for AI-scale data centers.

Own hardware programs end-to-end: from initial requirements through validation, production, and deployment.

Manage the interaction between internal R&D teams and external hardware vendors (ODMs), ensuring hardware development aligns with DriveNets' software stack requirements and product timelines.

Collaborate cross-functionally with product management, systems architecture, software R&D, legal, and supply chain teams to align on requirements and execution plans.

Serve as the main technical point of contact with ODMs, managing technical discussions, tracking progress, and resolving issues.

Drive hardware and firmware planning, including schedule alignment with software integration cycles and overall AI data center rollout milestones.

Lead bug triage and resolution processes for hardware and firmware, including customer-reported issues.

Coordinate content and timelines for hardware and firmware releases, ensuring quality and timely delivery.

Identify and mitigate technical and schedule risks throughout the project lifecycle.

Provide technical guidance and hands-on engagement in board-level design issues, validation planning, hardware bring-up, and debugging.

Deliver regular status updates to executive stakeholders and drive decisions at critical project milestones.

Gather and communicate requirements in a collaborative manner across all stakeholders.

Requirements

Technical Skills

B.Sc. or higher in Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering, or a related technical field.

7+ years of experience in hardware program/project management or systems engineering roles.

Proven experience managing hardware development with external ODMs or hardware vendors.

Strong technical knowledge of networking hardware, high-speed board design, firmware, and hardware/software integration.

Experience with hardware validation, bring-up, and debugging tools.

Track record managing the full product lifecycle for hardware- and software-based products, from requirements to launch.

Working knowledge of project management methodologies (Agile and Waterfall).

Soft Skills

Strong cross-functional collaboration skills, with the ability to align engineering, product, legal, and supply chain teams around a shared plan.

Excellent communication and negotiation skills, including the ability to translate technical hardware issues into business impact for executive stakeholders.

Proactive and comfortable operating with ambiguity, with the initiative to help stand up a new group and its processes from the ground up.

Nice to Have / Advantage

Experience in the telecom or networking industry.

Background in AI infrastructure, data center, or GPU networking hardware.

Familiarity with whitebox hardware development models.

Experience in Agile or hybrid hardware-software development environments.

Experience with customer-facing issue management and escalation handling.

PMP certification or equivalent project management credential.

Exposure to DevOps practices and tooling.