Head of Product

Company Description

Inflight ICU develops The Guardian, a modular Patient Transport Compartment (PTC) that transforms a commercial wide-body aircraft into a fully equipped intensive or medium-care unit for a single flight or short period. By installing The Guardian in the cabin at the airline’s hub in under two hours, airlines can transport critically ill patients on regular flights, dramatically lowering cost and CO₂ emissions compared to private air ambulances.

As a young, mission-driven startup, we are building both our product and our organisation. You will work closely with the founders and top-tier partners to bring a highly regulated, safety-critical aerospace-medical product to market and help enable our ambition to fly the first patient in 2027.​​

Role Description

As Product Manager, you own the hardware product behind The Guardian PTC across its full lifecycle: concept, design, development, industrialisation, and supply chain. You act as the linking pin between engineering, certification, medical experts, and suppliers, translating complex technical, regulatory, and user needs into a robust, manufacturable system.​

This is a hands-on, entrepreneurial role in which you will:

• Shape the product and roadmap for The Guardian PTC and related hardware modules.
• Coordinate day-to-day development work with design, engineering, and certification partners.
• Make trade-offs between weight, ergonomics, manufacturability, cost, maintenance, and medical usability in the cabin environment.
• Set up and maintain a clean Bill of Materials (BOM) and configuration baseline across variants and aircraft types.
• Support supplier selection, component sourcing, and ramp-up of manufacturing partners.
• Guard structured documentation, version control, and change management in a safety-critical context (aviation and medical).

Job aspects

• Location: Delft, NL (hybrid but at least 2 days/week on-site). The role requires regular travel within Europe (and occasionally beyond) for supplier visits, integration work, testing, and certification activities.
• Employment type: Full-time (80% possible)
• Experience level: Medior (3–5 years)
• Background: Industrial Design Engineering, Aerospace Engineering, or similar
• Salary: €45,000–€60,000 gross per year (depending on experience & fit)
• Equity: Employee share options available

What you will do (key responsibilities)

• Own product definition and requirements for the Guardian medical unit.
• Drive the product lifecycle from early concept to certified, serially manufactured product. Guide the transition from prototype builds to industrialised, repeatable manufacturing. Translate regulatory (EASA/FAA/medical) and airline requirements into clear specifications and design decisions.​​
• Coordinate internal and external stakeholders (designers, engineers, suppliers, test houses, certifiers).
• Actively manage key product constraints such as weight, volume, installation time, ergonomics, and cabin compatibility across aircraft types.
• Maintain BOMs, drawings, and configuration items, and oversee engineering change processes.
• Travel to suppliers, manufacturing partners, and test or integration sites to support development, build, and validation activities.

What you bring (skills and experience)

• 3–5 years of experience in product management, physical product development, or aerospace/industrial design engineering.​
• Strong background in at least one of:
• Physical product development & Industrial design
• Aerospace products and cabin systems
• Hands-on experience with CAD tools and working with mechanical designs.
• Structured, pragmatic project management and stakeholder coordination skills.
• Experience in a start-up/scale-up or similarly dynamic environment is a strong plus.
• Experience in regulated, safety‑critical industries (medical, aerospace, railway, automotive, etc.) is an advantage.​

Personality & mindset

• Entrepreneurial, comfortable taking ownership and making decisions with incomplete information.
• Curious learner who enjoys diving into new domains (aviation, ICU care, certification).
• Proactive, self-starting, and solution-oriented; able to move from “slide” to “prototype” quickly.
• This role operates against a clear timeline toward first clinical deployment, requiring focus, prioritisation, and decisiveness.
• Communicative and collaborative, able to align technical, medical, and business stakeholders.​

What we offer

• A key role in a mission-driven start-up building truly life-saving technology.
• High technical complexity at the intersection of aerospace, industrial design, and medical innovation.​​
• Real influence on product direction, architecture, and company growth; you are not just “managing tickets”.
• Direct access to founders, ICU doctors, and top‑tier suppliers such as established cabin and PTC manufacturers.​​