Founding Head of Hardware

01 About EmotionX

What if AI could help us become better at being human?

EmotionX is building a premium consumer AI brand for emotional well-being. It starts with a Personal AI that understands you, and extends into everyday life through fashion-forward wearables:

• Fine our Personal AI, providing personalized support across emotional well-being, relationships, and personal performance. Live in beta.
• Feel a series of AI wearables designed as jewelry, bringing real-world context into more intelligent, personalized experiences. Feel debuts at CES 2027 in Las Vegas.

Together, they represent our vision for AI that understands people beyond the screen, combining multimodal intelligence, human-centered design, and thoughtfully crafted consumer experiences.

02 The Opportunity

We're looking for a Founding Head of Hardware to lead Feel and help build EmotionX into a globally competitive hardware-software consumer brand.

Feel is a series of AI wearables designed as jewelry: a pendant, a collar pin, a bracelet, and cufflinks. Each piece brings real-world context to Fine, so our Personal AI can understand people throughout their day.

Feel debuts at CES 2027, then moves toward our first pre-order launch. Your job is to take Feel from its CES debut to a product people pre-order, wear every day, and recommend: lead the engineering of the series, take our manufacturing partners through production, and build the hardware team as we scale.

You'll join the founding leadership team and report to the CEO. You'll set the requirements, run the partner discussions, review every build, sign off on quality, and decide what ships.

This role is for someone who has built hardware at a world-class company and is ready to own an entire product. What matters is the depth of what you've built and the drive to take full ownership here.

03 What You'll Own

1. Lead Hardware Engineering and System Architecture

• Define Feel's technical requirements with the CEO and CTO, and own the hardware architecture that delivers them: sensors, microphones and audio capture, processors, power and battery, antennas, connectivity, and firmware.
• Lead the miniaturization of electronics into jewelry-scale forms: component selection, PCB and mechanical integration, thermal management, and antenna performance in metal enclosures.
• Drive the device-to-AI pipeline with the CTO: on-device processing, data capture, connectivity, firmware, and over-the-air updates.
• Build privacy into the hardware: clear recording indicators, consent, on-device processing, and secure data handling.
• Make the engineering trade-offs among performance, size, battery life, cost, and schedule.

2. Lead Manufacturing and Supply Chain

• Lead our ODM and solution partner through technical reviews, commercial terms, timelines, and accountability, and bring on new partners and second sources as the series grows.
• Keep critical architecture, specifications, validation standards, and quality ownership inside EmotionX, with partners executing against them.
• Take each piece through EVT, DVT, and PVT to mass production, with design for manufacturing built in.
• Own quality and validation: reliability, environmental, water, sweat, and drop testing, yield, and final sign-off before anything ships.
• Own the bill of materials, cost targets, and certification for our launch markets.
• Work with Operations and Growth on supply, inventory, fulfillment, and pre-order timing for the launch and beyond.

3. Engineer Jewelry into Wearable Technology

• Partner with our in-house jewelry designer to fit the electronics into each form while keeping the look intact.
• Select materials and finishes for skin contact, everyday durability, and wireless performance.
• Engineer the full device experience: charging, pairing, fit, and all-day comfort.

4. Build the Hardware Roadmap and Team

• Set the Feel hardware roadmap with the CEO and CPO, from the CES version to pre-order and future generations.
• Hire and lead our first hardware, firmware, and hardware product team members, with the processes they need to ship on schedule and at quality.
• Serve as EmotionX's technical authority on hardware with partners and investors.

Feel is worn every day, close to the body. Craft and reliability matter as much as the intelligence inside.

04 Who We're Looking For

We're looking for an exceptional hardware builder who has shipped devices at a renowned consumer hardware brand and is ready to take a premium product from concept to customers' hands.

Essential Qualifications

• Renowned consumer hardware background: Hardware engineering or hardware product experience at a globally recognized consumer hardware or wearables brand, or at a consumer hardware company known for defining its category.
• Shipped products: You've worked on consumer devices that went from concept to mass production, with clear ownership of a meaningful part of the product.
• Hands-on with manufacturing partners: You've worked directly with ODMs or contract manufacturers through EVT, DVT, and PVT, with a strong grasp of design for manufacturing, quality, and cost.
• Wearables expertise: Experience with wearables or small, battery-powered connected devices: sensing, power, connectivity, materials, and comfort.
• Engineering depth: A background in electrical, mechanical, or systems engineering for consumer electronics, with the technical depth to lead architecture decisions and challenge partners' engineering.
• Design sensibility: Strong taste in industrial design, materials, and finish, and a clear point of view on what makes a device desirable.
• Hardware-software integration: Experience building devices that work as part of an app, subscription, or software ecosystem.
• Founder mindset: You want to build a company. You thrive with ambiguity and lean resources, and you're ready to own the whole product, from architecture to the factory floor, and to grow the team around you.

Additional Advantages

• Jewelry, luxury, fashion, or premium lifestyle products, including precious materials, fine finishes, or fashion-tech collaborations.
• Ultra-compact devices such as rings, earbuds, or hearing aids.
• Supply chain and manufacturing experience in Shenzhen, Greater China, or wider Asia.
• Launching hardware through crowdfunding or pre-orders.
• Audio-capture, health and wellness, biometric sensing, or AI-enabled consumer devices.
• Designing for privacy and trust in devices people carry everywhere.
• A genuine interest in psychology, emotional intelligence, personal well-being, and human-centered technology.

What matters most to us is what you've personally built and shipped, and how much you want to own next.

05 What Success Looks Like

This role will be evaluated on what ships, how well it's made, and how customers respond.

In Your First Six Months

• A clear hardware architecture, technical requirements, and roadmap across the Feel series, agreed with the founding team.
• A strong operating structure with our ODM and solution partner: timelines, quality standards, cost targets, and accountability.
• Feel on track for pre-order: design ready for manufacturing, certification planned, and production builds on schedule.
• Engineering builds meeting targets for battery life, sensing, and reliability.

As We Scale

• Pre-order units delivered on time, at quality, and on cost.
• Strong customer response on design, comfort, and reliability, with low return rates.
• A multi-generation roadmap that grows the Feel series and deepens how it works with Fine.
• A hardware team and partner network that ship new products on a repeatable cadence.

Specific milestones will be set with the founding team.

06 Compensation & Benefits

• Founding member-level equity, designed to align long-term incentives with the company's growth.
• Base salary, with compensation structured to reflect the opportunity and realities of an early-stage startup.
• Medical insurance coverage, subject to location and plan eligibility.
• Employer CPF contributions for eligible Singapore-based employees.

07 Why Join EmotionX?

• Shape the next frontier of Personal AI. As AI becomes increasingly capable of doing what humans do, we believe the next frontier of personal AI isn't greater machine intelligence just to automate tasks, but to expand personal well-being, human agency and performance potential. We're building technology that helps people better understand themselves, navigate the complexities in the world around them, and live more intentional, fulfilling lives. Join us in defining what Personal AI can become beyond productivity.
• Create a category-defining premium consumer brand. We're bringing together multimodal AI, agentic intelligence, fashion-forward wearables, and thoughtfully designed software to create a new kind of consumer experience. This is an opportunity to help build a globally recognized brand where cutting-edge technology meets exceptional design and genuine human value.
• Own the journey from zero to global scale. Join at a defining moment as we bring our products to market, showcase our integrated ecosystem at CES 2027, and build our global consumer presence. You'll have the autonomy to shape our hardware strategy, build the Feel series, and influence the trajectory of the business from the beginning.
• Founder-level ownership. This is a founding-level opportunity with meaningful equity, direct access to leadership, and the chance to grow alongside the company. We're looking for people who want to take ownership, challenge conventions, and build something they can be proud to have helped create.