Head of Operations

About Human ArchiveHuman Archive is a research lab backed by Y Combinator focused on modeling human embodied intelligence.Humans are the most sophisticated biological systems we have ever observed, yet we still do not fully understand ourselves. Research into human physical intelligence — including the human hand, proprioception, and vision — remains largely unsolved. Our mission is to recover human embodied intelligence as a learned model. To achieve this, we build custom hardware products, deploy them globally at scale, and publish research. Today, our data is used for robotics and world modeling, but the broader opportunity is advancing scientific research into intelligence itself.Founded by Stanford and UC Berkeley researchers, we are lean, deeply technical, and operate at extreme speed, taking on unglamorous and conventionally impossible problems that directly unlock step-function gains in model capability.The deployment of capable humanoids at scale will permanently redefine human labor. Undesirable physical work will disappear, and human effort will shift toward a new era of abundant creativity.We are building the infrastructure to accelerate that transition by assembling the Human Archive mafia. You will own meaningful systems from day one and see your work directly impact model capabilities. This is a once-in-a-generation inflection point. If you want to help reshape physical labor and work on problems that matter at civilizational scale, join us.Hardware Supply Chain Lead (Shenzhen)The most important operational role on the hardware program. You live in Shenzhen, walk the factory floor, and own the ODM relationship and the component supply.What you'll work onODM relationship and program managementDay-to-day relationship with our manufacturing partnerSOW, milestone schedule, and deliverable trackingOn-site issue resolution at the factoryContract negotiations and quarterly reviewsComponent sourcingAllocations for critical components (industrial image sensors, IMUs, MEMS sensors, lenses, Li-ion cells)Pricing, lead times, MOQs across the Chinese supply chainBackup supplier lists for every critical partLong-lead component buffer managementFactory operationsIn-person factory visits, line audits, first-article inspections, NPI runsFloor QA and incoming material inspectionYield improvement and corrective action plansTranslation between English-speaking engineering and Mandarin-speaking factory teamsDFM and manufacturing liaisonDFM reviews between our engineering team and the ODM's process engineersTest fixture and assembly line designReal-time production blocker resolutionCommercial and complianceContracts, NDAs, IP protection arrangements with Chinese partnersBOM cost tracking and cost-down sweepsFCC, CE, RoHS, REACH documentationRequired experienceMandarin-native plus business-fluent EnglishResident in Shenzhen or willing to relocate5+ years in hardware supply chain or ODM management roles in ChinaDeep working network across the Chinese consumer electronics supply chainComfortable on factory floors and in vendor meetings, not just on emailStrong plusBackground at a hardware company building head-worn, body-worn, or consumer camera products (DJI, Insta360, GoPro, Meta, Anker, Goertek, etc.)Sony industrial sensor allocation experiencePrior relationships at Tier-1 Chinese ODMsScaling hardware from <100 to 10,000+ units/yearAbout this role You're our senior presence in China from day one. Supply chain runs on trust and proximity. Fly to factories, walk lines, negotiate over dinner. If that sounds tedious, you'll hate it. If it sounds like the job, you'll have more autonomy than most VPs.