Netholabs is a neuroscience and AI research company building biological foundation models grounded in large-scale neurobehavioral data. It designs custom hardware, high-density neural recording systems and tracking environments to capture petascale datasets, working towards whole brain emulation. The company has offices in London and San Francisco and a research site at the University of Sussex in Brighton.

About the role

Netholabs operates two recording platforms: a preclinical ethological monitoring system integrated with behavior and neural data, and a human motion-capture and neurophysiology platform. Both exist today as working prototypes. This role turns them into products: reproducible, manufacturable, remotely updatable systems that can be deployed at scale and maintained without an engineer in the room.

You will own R&D delivery across the London lab and hardware program, co-developing hardware with the electronics and mechanical engineers, enforcing data capture protocols, and engaging contract manufacturers to scale. It is a hands-on role: as much time in the lab and on the phone with suppliers as in a spec document.

What you will do

• Take working prototypes to shippable, field-deployable systems, defining the product and owning the roadmap through to delivery.
• Specify and build over-the-air update infrastructure: firmware, versioning, rollback, fleet management and remote diagnostics.
• Own the design-for-manufacture transition, including DFM and DFA reviews, BOM ownership, tolerancing, test fixtures and production test protocols.
• Identify, qualify and manage contract manufacturers from RFQ through NPI to sustained production.
• Establish best-practice data capture protocols across EEG, fNIRS, EMG, pupillometry, motion capture and video so quality stays consistent across sessions, operators and sites.
• Define the requirements that make in-the-wild collection viable: wearability, setup time, robustness, battery life and unattended operation.
• Build the quality, documentation and regulatory groundwork appropriate to a research-device product, including design history, ISO 13485-style discipline and a CE/UKCA pathway.

What they are looking for

• At least 3 years, ideally 7 or more, in hardware product management, product engineering or program management, with several products taken from prototype to volume manufacture.
• Direct experience running RFQs, sitting through NPI builds and fixing production line problems remotely.
• Deep understanding of connected-device architecture: OTA updates, device provisioning, telemetry and fleet management.
• Enough fluency across electronics, mechanical and firmware to hold a real technical conversation with each.
• Strongly preferred: wearable, biosignal or medical device hardware, human research data collection protocols, and CE/UKCA or FDA experience.

To apply, send a CV and a short note about a product taken from prototype to manufacture, what broke, and what you did about it.