Vice President - Engineering

About VectorWave

VectorWave is building the Analog Processing Unit (APU), the world’s first programmable neuromorphic processor that runs AI inference on raw radio-frequency waveforms pre-digitization. Conventional RF systems must digitize the signal before any AI inference can occur, fundamentally limiting the latency, power consumption, and performance of wireless edge compute. The APU bypasses these bottlenecks by performing the AI signal processing fully in analog.

We are a venture-backed MIT spinout translating award-winning research into new wireless products with fundamentally new capabilities. With applications spanning defense (electronic warfare, spectrum awareness, anti-jam) and commercial wireless (Wi-Fi and 5G/6G spectrum sharing, interference management), we are building a team of engineers who are excited to transform the future of wireless communications!

The role

We're hiring our first VP of Engineering to turn a working prototype into products customers integrate into their own systems. You will report to the CEO and work closely with the CTO, the original inventor of the APU architecture.

Your role will be to run the engineering organization (the team, execution, delivery, and engineering process from prototype hardware to production) and work with the CTO to achieve VectorWave’s technical vision and architecture roadmap.

This is a role that requires both deep experience in leadership and a willingness to do hands-on engineering work alongside the team. You will start with a small engineering team, build it out across the disciplines listed below, and technically contribute where your expertise is strongest.

Location: This is an in-person, full-time role at our office in the Greater Boston area. There likely will be some travel to customers, conferences, and manufacturing partners.

What you'll do

• Build and lead the engineering team: hiring plan, recruiting, onboarding, coaching, and performance.

• Own engineering planning and delivery: roadmaps, milestones, resourcing, and trade-offs between schedule, cost, and performance.

• Own the path to production: design, build, test, and characterization with packaging, assembly, and test partners.

• Evaluate commercial partners for production and manage relationships with them.

• Continually structure and improve the lab, test infrastructure, and engineering practices a hardware company runs on: design reviews, release and change control, documentation, and test coverage.

• Deliver engineering milestones aligned to customer and internal roadmaps.

• Work with the CTO on architecture, technical risk, and other key decisions.

• Lay the groundwork for quality, reliability, and qualification as products move toward defense and commercial production.

The team you'll build

You'll build a team that spans:

• RF and microwave hardware design

• Analog and mixed-signal circuit design, including RFIC and MMIC design

• Packaging and ASIC, SoC & SiP integration

• New product introduction (NPI)

• RF test and characterization, from the bench and over the air through production test

• Embedded firmware for control, configuration, and calibration

• Software: the SDK, drivers and APIs, and the toolchain that takes trained models onto our hardware

• Machine learning for RF signals, including models built to run on analog hardware

• Software-defined radio (SDR) and wireless test infrastructure

• Systems and applications engineering, from requirements to reference designs and customer integration

• Quality, reliability, and qualification, plus lab and test technicians, as we approach production

Your first year

In your first year, you'll:

• Hire the first wave of the team.

• Lead development of the MVP through design release, assembly, test, and characterization with partners.

• Structure and improve the lab and test infrastructure.

• Refine the development kit.

• Instill engineering practices: design reviews, releases, and documentation.

What you bring

• 12+ years in engineering, including 5+ years leading teams that span hardware and software.

• A track record of leading product development and introduction: at least one hardware product, with its firmware and software, taken from development into production.

• Deep, hands-on expertise in at least one of the disciplines above. Depth in RF, machine learning for RF or signal processing, or system-in-package production is strongly preferred.

• Enough fluency across the rest of the stack to hire well, review designs, and make sound calls outside your specialty.

• A BS in Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering, Computer Science, Physics, or a related field.

• Clear, proactive communication with engineers, executives, customers, and government partners.

Nice to have

• An MS or PhD in a relevant field.

• Startup experience, especially building an engineering team from an early stage.

• Experience managing managers.

• Experience on government-funded R&D programs, such as SBIR or OTA, including handling controlled unclassified information.

• Experience getting components designed into commercial products.

• Ability to obtain and/or maintain a U.S. Government security clearance.

Very few people have all of this. If you've led engineering teams that took hardware and software products into production, and you go deep in at least one of these areas, we want to hear from you even if you don't match every bullet.

How we work

• Always be curious. Sometimes the most profound outcomes come from paying attention to the smallest details.

• Truth guides us. Honesty and candor are foundational. Don't delay hard conversations, start them.

• Think out loud. Voicing anything both technical and non-technical helps us solve problems together.

• Mistakes are expected. Perfection is impossible when you're building something new. We want to navigate challenges thoughtfully so we can learn and improve.

• Adaptability is essential. Make the best decision with the information at hand, then be ready to adjust.

• Lean on each other. As we scale, we aim to maintain our scrappy, small team camaraderie.

Compensation and benefits

Competitive salary and meaningful equity, plus:

The basics

• Medical: UnitedHealthcare Choice Plus, platinum tier. $10 primary care visit. $10 therapy visits.

• Dental: Blue Cross Blue Shield Dental Blue. Child orthodontia included.

• Vision: Guardian.

• Unlimited PTO.

Family matters

• We offer 95% dependent premium coverage.

• Plus, we have uncapped IVF support for fertility and family planning.

• Coming soon: Twenty-six weeks of parental leave at 100% of pay for every parent: birthing, non-birthing, adoptive, and foster.

For life beyond work

• 401(k): we match 100% of the first 6% of pay, dollar for dollar.

• Take care of yourself with a $2,000 annual wellness benefit.

Equal opportunity

VectorWave is an equal opportunity employer. We do not discriminate on the basis of race, color, religion, sex (including pregnancy), sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, age, disability, genetic information, veteran status, or any other characteristic protected by law. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to their protected veteran status and will not be discriminated against on the basis of disability. If you need an accommodation during the hiring process, let us know.

It is unlawful in Massachusetts to require or administer a lie detector test as a condition of employment or continued employment. An employer who violates this law shall be subject to criminal penalties and civil liability.

VectorWave participates in E-Verify. See the E-Verify Participation and Right to Work posters in English and Spanish.