Our development process spans design, collaboration, engineering, relaboration (we just made that up), and execution. Through it all we believe knowing the answer isn’t always as important as wanting to find the answer.
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Secondly, guiding that development process is critical. After all, we’re an engineering firm, but with enough humility to know our success is attributable to guardrails, not slot tracks.
We didn’t invent the process. We’re paying homage to generations of world-changing hardware engineering and industrial design in the Pacific Northwest and the San Francisco Bay Area. We’re a senior team of professionals with enough seasoning to recognize what works. And enough punk rock to know sometimes it needs to be broken before it becomes a masterpiece.
HOW WE'RE
STITCHED
TOGETHER.
Mechanical Engineering
Our advanced mechanical engineering team excels in delivering the diverse range of beautiful visions our design partners generate. From the earliest prototypes and models all the way through to manufacturing builds, they provide exceptional technical perspective that balances user experience, reliability, and cost.
Electrical Engineering
With a wide scope of experiences in a variety of electrical systems, this team’s work is often at the heart of today's innovative product experiences. They handle everything, from designing system architecture and proof-of-concept prototypes to cleverly-optimized solutions that end up in the hands of very happy customers.
Firmware Development
The high-touch interactions of modern devices require superiorly-designed software systems that deliver elegant interactions while maintaining reliability and saving energy. Easy, when your devs are skilled in many processor architectures and peripherals, to ensure quality support no matter your product's computing needs.
Project Management
A great project is one that runs surprisingly smoothly, and gets results. A great partner is one that communicates clearly. Igor's project management tactics aim to do both, delivering the results you need and the confidence that comes with knowing you have a partner who's collaborating with you to achieve your goals.
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WE'VE TALKED
ABOUT THE BAND.
HERE'S HOW WE
MAKE MUSIC.
New Product Introduction
Igor knows that every product launch, whether it's your first or your 500th, takes a village. That's why our program plans always include a draft manufacturing plan, so that you (and your partners) will never need to wonder what lies ahead: Our production architectures look ahead for mass production constraints to avoid nasty surprises.
Product Leadership
We can take your idea from point A to point B and guide its smooth landing. Even after marketing requirements, experience mapping, sustainability goals, and quality management, our product briefs clearly define success, so we can answer the important questions like “what's next?”
New Venture NuRturing
We can help get your startup funded and heading in the right direction with small and focused efforts to validate assumptions, prove the technology, develop initial architectures, and identify a winning development path towards mass production.
Sustainability Guidance
How our work affects our world, matters. So we take a holistic approach with each of our partners to solve for sustainability, because we know it’s not a one-size-fits-all effort. By creating a strategy that engages the entire team upfront, we set a course that’s aligned with everyone’s needs.
WHO MAKES
IGOR WORK.
Igor Institute has offices in Seattle, San Francisco, and Vancouver BC. We’re now more than 35 engineers strong, working together to help solve the industry’s most challenging technical design problems. One thing we haven’t built is a device to toot our own horn too much, but between the world-changing companies we partner with and the talent that’s joined us over the years, we’re pretty proud of our team and its production.
Aren is the CEO and co-founder of Igor Institute, a product development and hardware engineering firm located in Seattle, WA. As a strategic marketing and communications business professional, Aren has led teams of talented people committed to enhancing companies’ unique brands and helping redefine the conversation around product development, hardware engineering, device design, healthcare, and higher education. His previous work included Synapse Product Development and the University of Washington School of Nursing. Aren has his BA and MA from Seattle University.
Steve is an Electrical and Firmware Engineer at Igor Institute. He has worked in a variety of challenging areas of hardware technology, starting with RADAR detection systems at Lockheed Martin and then as an electrical engineer and systems architect at Synapse Product Development. Steve has worked on numerous products with precision analog, low power digital, wireless communication, and signal-processing intensive systems (most notably architecting and designing the electrical systems of the Nike Fuelband). Steve holds his B.S. and M.Eng. in Electrical and Computer Engineering from Cornell University.
Darin is the Chief Technical Officer for Igor Institute. Over the past two decades, he has led teams focused on developing customer-centric connected experiences that transcend channels and empower brands. Beginning as a Mechanical Engineer, he has been bringing products from concept through production for consumer electronics products in sports and fitness, health and wellness tracking, smart materials, entertainment, and transportation. Darin holds a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from California State University Chico.
Jerry Hansen was the former Founder and CEO of CIRTEC Medical Systems. He has extensive Board of Directors experience in private and public medical device and pharmaceutical companies as well as International experience in Europe and Board membership on a TSE listed $1B company. Before co-founding Circle Medical Devices which sold to private equity in 2012, Jerry’s engineering and business experience included time at Raychem Corp from 1967 to 1977, CEO at Humphrey Instruments/Allergan from 1977 to 1987, CEO and Founder of InSite Vision from 1987 to 1989, and then Board Member of Santen (Japan) from 1989 to 2002. Jerry graduated from UC Berkeley with a BS in Mechanical Engineering and currently serves as a senior executive consultant and project advisor at Igor Institute.
Kathy leverages her expertise in product development and Quality Engineering to deliver to spec on time and on budget. She sees projects as puzzles and loves digging into challenging designs with talented teams. Her various roles in consulting, manufacturing, supply chain, medical devices, agriculture and consumer electronics at companies like Nike, Quanttus, and Bloomberg have honed her communication skills and perspective on great product development. Kathy holds a BSc in Kinesiology and BSc in Biosystems Engineering from the University of Manitoba and an MSc in Sport Engineering from Sheffield Hallam University.
Throughout her career, Narissa has been humbled by the technical know-how and creativity of her teammates and is fueled by a desire to strengthen her own and her organization’s abilities to navigate the fuzzy front end of the product development process. Prior to joining Igor Institute, Narissa worked as an ME at multiple medical device and wearables start-ups in the Boston area. She was most recently Director of Mechanical Engineering with Nike Smart Systems, where she and her team worked cross-functionally across Nike to envision, develop, and commercialize the future of digitally enabled and connected products, serving athletes around the world. Through this experience, she gained extensive knowledge of the engineering rigor and processes required to deliver high volume, high performing, and highly reliable consumer electronic technologies. Narissa studied at Dartmouth College where she received a double major in Mechanical Engineering and Studio Art.
Daniel is a software engineer with over 15 years of product development experience, including applications in aircraft guidance systems, radio communications, motor control and ultra-low-power monitoring. His skills cover a range of technologies, including embedded Linux, low-power microcontrollers, FPGAs, and high-performance parallel SIMD/GPU code. Daniel is an active open-source developer and is the principal author of MSPDebug and the Dhara NAND flash translation layer. He holds a BSc and PgDipSc in Computer Science from the University of Otago.
As the Director of Strategic Partnerships for Igor Institute, Ryen helps to develop new partners and relationships within the product development ecosystem. With a marketing and entrepreneurship degree from the University of Washington, Ryen previously worked in advertising helping lead ad agencies in the Pacific Northwest. Working with the leadership team at Igor, Ryen helps identify strategic opportunities for growth and brings his knowledge of marketing to help hardware companies launch products and connect with resources needed for success.
Janie's career has focused on strategic business management. She has worked extensively in both the engineering and management consulting industries. She has expertise in finance, accounting, HR, and contract negotiation. Janie is passionate about innovation and process improvement. She holds a BS from the University of Washington and an MBA from UC Berkeley.
Shelley is a Senior Program Manager who has 19 years of experience in Engineering and Supply Chain roles throughout the product lifecycle–from Research to NPI to End of Life. She’s rolled up her sleeves starting from scratch on a product in a 9-person company, and also has rounded out her experience working for complex corporate giants like HP and Nike. She has stomped the globe learning product development, supply chain strategy, and manufacturing operations, with an emphasis on chopstick skills and the word for “new friend” in many languages. She has spent eight years leading project teams to launch new products and is always looking for ways to simplify. Shelley holds a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from Santa Clara University.
Kirk is a senior electrical engineer with over a decade of experience across the medical device and metrology industries. He has developed innovative solutions for RF coils used with intraoperative MRI’s and led the electrical engineering effort for a point of care hematology device. Within the metrology industry he worked on a number of systems capable of sub micron measurements. His skills in electrical engineering include digital systems design, precision measurement circuitry, optical detection, FGPAs, ASICS, PCB layout, verilog, and C++. Kirk holds a BSc in Electrical Engineering from the University of Manitoba.
Nathan has developed hardware for the broadcast, fitness, and aerospace industries. A hardware generalist, he has experience with embedded devices, analog circuits, audio/video circuits, power circuits, RF and wireless communications, and firmware development. He enjoys all aspects of bringing products to market, from initial ideation and development to certification and working with manufacturers. Nathan earned his B.S. from W.S.U. (Go Cougs!) and M.S. from U.W. Bothell.
Rory is a senior electrical engineer with a breadth of product design experience including ultrasonics, laser optics, mobile payment, automotive and consumer devices. Over the past decade he has delivered successful low power, connected, and wearable products to market. Rory holds a B.S. and M.S. in Electrical Engineering from the University of Washington.
Derek is a talented software architect, Linux expert, and gamer. He successfully led software development projects in Japan, England, Canada, India, Germany, Taiwan, and across the United States. Derek has developed software for Linux servers, cell phones, commercial aircraft, sonar imaging systems, and embedded devices from bare metal RTOS implementations to custom Android/Linux OS distributions.
Dave has decades of experience in low-level systems programming and embedded. He holds multiple undergraduate and graduate degrees in Electrical and Computer Engineering from the University of Washington. Past experience includes audio / video consumer devices at RealNetworks, and the linux kernel programming team at Facebook.
Trent is a software engineer with over 25 years of experience working with Linux. He has worked on devices ranging from automotive electronics and DVRs, to RFID readers and meta-material based flat panel satellite antennas, to concrete plant control systems. He has long been a supporter of Open Source software and has hundreds of commits in the Linux kernel as well as dozens of other open source projects, from bootloaders to compilers to video games. Trent holds a B.S. in Computer Science from the University of Washington.
Oscar splits his time between the firmware and the hardware disciplines. Firmware projects range from embedded Linux and server management down to bare-metal, MCU programming. He's designed the electronics for both shipping projects and for development tools that support on-going work. He designed and shipped the first Bluetooth LE product that is certified for FIPS 140-2.
Erica is a versatile engineer whose experience in product design ranges from consumer electronics and wearables, to medical devices, to the micro mobility/electric vehicle industry. Erica’s variety of experiences thus far in her career reflect her passion for learning new skills and jumping into technical subject matters. Prior to joining Igor Institute in Seattle, Erica worked as an ME in the San Francisco Bay Area. She started her career at startup Willow Innovations, where she contributed to the conception, development, and market launch of a modern, wearable breast pump. She also spent time designing e-bikes at Lyft for their shared-use Bikes and Scooters Team. Some of the products that she has designed and taken through high volume production include an electric vehicle battery, a consumer medical device and its accessories, and a structural vehicle assembly. Erica studied at Stanford University where she earned a BS in Biomechanical Engineering and an MS in Mechanical Engineering.
Brian is a licensed mechanical engineer who has focused on product design in consumer electronics, wearables, and data centers. He has worked on the initial stages of product creation through validation and testing; launching high volume consumer electronic devices at overseas and domestic contract manufacturers. He has degrees in Mechanical Engineering from Seattle University and UCLA.
A medical device and consumer electronics inventor and development specialist, Brett has 20 years experience in medical device development with 10 years of startup experience in diabetes care including the acquisition of Calibra Medical by Johnson & Johnson. Brett was previously at Philips Medical, working on cardiac monitor and defibrillator projects. His background includes: complex electro-mechanical systems integration; microfluidic metering and associated mechanical systems in a medical device; tissue insertion for needle and cannula, associated insertion tools; automated test and production equipment; significant human factors experience; risk management, sterilization validation, biomaterials selection and evaluation. Brett is named on over 13 issued patents and holds a BSME from the University of Washington.
We're
Keeping An
Eye On
Education.
Our devotion to education runs deep, for a number of reasons. One, we’re always learning. For us, teaching often reminds us what we don’t know yet. Two, let’s be serious, we can poach talent right out of school that way. We love working with smart people of all ages, whether it’s knocking around ideas at the world’s leading tech conferences or lending our skills and experience to aspiring engineers and designers. In classrooms or in detention or wherever we think we can make a difference.
We’re big on interaction. Let’s use some modern technology and talk about what you have brewing.
