Founding Production Engineer

Clema is building the personal cooling platform for the people who keep critical infrastructure running in extreme heat. Our solid-state system integrates thermoelectric cooling, power electronics, mechanical assemblies, and soft goods into a wearable that works under existing protective equipment for a full industrial shift.

The core technology works in the field. We have built and tested nine product generations, deployed nearly 100 units across three pilots, and won paying industrial customers. We recently closed an oversubscribed pre-seed round. Now we are turning a pilot-stage product into the production platform that can serve energy, data center, logistics, construction, and industrial teams at scale.

You will own that transition. Working directly with our CTO and founders, you will be the technical authority for production readiness from architecture and component decisions through design release, supplier transfer, pilot builds, and ramp. This is a hands‑on founding role with unusual authority over what ships, how it is built, and what engineering standards Clema carries forward.

• Own the production architecture. Turn field needs and experimental prototypes into a coherent, manufacturable system. Resolve the interfaces among thermoelectric modules, heat‑transfer surfaces, power, batteries, wiring, connectors, ducts, rigid structures, foam, and soft goods.
• Make rigorous component decisions. Evaluate batteries and power sources, cooling modules, materials, connectors, and other critical subcomponents against safety, thermal performance, weight, durability, availability, serviceability, cost, and supply risk. Know when proven components beat a novel solution and how to validate the difference.
• Create production‑ready designs. Produce controlled CAD, drawings, tolerance stacks, material specifications, bills of materials, assembly requirements, and objective acceptance criteria. Translate every important design intent into something a supplier can build and Clema can inspect.
• Freeze and control the right design. Establish design‑freeze criteria, revision tracking, and engineering change control. Preserve fast experimentation while ensuring the factory always knows exactly which configuration is approved for production.
• Engineer for a full shift on a real body. Work with our wearable designer to make cooling contact, load distribution, fit, routing, and component retention effective across movement, different body sizes, PPE, heat, sweat, dust, flexing, abrasion, and repeated daily use.
• Supplier and factory execution. Work directly with contract manufacturers and component suppliers on design‑for‑manufacturing reviews, first articles, sample approval, tooling, fixtures, work instructions, and pilot builds. Close issues at the bench and on the factory floor.
• Build the quality system around the product. Define repeatable incoming, in‑process, and end‑of‑line tests. Own product and process risk reviews, reliability plans, failure analysis, and corrective actions. Bring in specialist safety or compliance support where required.
• Ramp readiness and continuous improvement. Track build yield, defects, rework, assembly time, unit cost, and field failures. Find root causes, verify corrective actions, and turn each build into a more reliable next one.

• Typically 7+ years of relevant experience in production, NPI, manufacturing, product engineering, supplier industrialization, or a closely related hardware discipline. We care more about the depth of your ownership than the calendar.
• Personal ownership of at least one complex electromechanical product or substantial subsystem from prototype through…