Senior Product Operations Manager, New Hardware

Location

This role will be based in Charlotte, NC 

Summary of Role

As the Senior Product Operations Manager of Hardware, you will be part of the Asset Management & Services team at Palmetto. Your primary responsibility is to provide expertise and detail-oriented analysis at the intersection of hardware and software for solar and other residential clean energy products. You will be a key player in guiding our clean energy hardware strategy through work streams which include assessing and launching hardware technologies, leading our Palmetto LightReach Approved Vendor List process, expanding our VPP (Virtual Power Plant) program, and managing our OEM relationships to strengthen our connections and improve their offerings. You will be an integral part of the conversation as we develop and expand our hardware product infrastructure with devices such as heat pumps, smart electric panels, and consumption monitoring devices. You will play a key role in supporting our rapid growth while improving customer satisfaction and ensuring a large fleet of healthy assets.

Strategic & Tactical

• Provide expertise in the ins-and-outs of current, future, and legacy solar and residential energy technologies – especially solar modules, batteries, inverters, monitoring platforms and mounting hardware – to ensure Palmetto has the most sophisticated offering / approach in the market.
• Seamlessly communicate requirements between a number of disparate stakeholders, including engineers, operations teammates, OEMs, and investors.
• Understand and share the business implications of hardware decisions — both from the perspective of hardware performance and installation / maintenance processes.
• Work closely with commercial and operational teams to ensure successful new hardware launches and maintain AVL requirements.
• Proactively identify new partners and technologies that advance Palmetto’s strategic approach, and share proposed product and hardware strategies with leadership.
• Maintain relationships with OEM partners and technical teams, and proactively communicate changing requirements from partners to Palmetto and from Palmetto to partners.

Qualifications

• 7+ years of experience in a role which provides a deep, highly technical, hands-on understanding of solar and/or other energy efficiency technologies – potential backgrounds include hardware product development, electrician / installer, etc.
• Experience in the solar industry is required; experience with other home efficiency hardware types, such as HVAC, smart thermostats, EV Chargers, etc. is a plus.
• You can dive into an in-depth Independent Engineer report on a solar inverter or battery and quickly understand the risks / strengths of the product, and work with the OEM to determine what is possible to mitigate.
• You are highly analytical, data-driven, and detail-oriented, with the ability to use data to drive decisions.
• You have experience managing across multiple priorities, being adaptable, while influencing peers and cross-functional teams – and are able to organize / lead multiple parallel workstreams.
• You have strong communication skills, and can communicate seamlessly with senior leaders, cross-functional peers, and external stakeholders in a timely manner.
• You proactively look beyond the obvious and understand the root cause and solve problems.
• Experience working at an early stage startup is preferred.
• Contractor’s license and/or Electrical license is preferred.