Straight Answers
What Should a Statement of Work for a Contract Hardware Engineer Include?
A statement of work for a contract hardware engineer should name each deliverable as a file or a tested result, give the acceptance test for each, tie payment to accepted milestones, list what you will supply and when, state the assumptions behind the price, define how changes and respins are handled, and assign the IP. If a line can't be checked at acceptance, rewrite it until it can.
The core sections
- Scope and written non-goals: what is in and, just as important, what is explicitly out.
- Deliverables as artifacts: schematic PDF and native files, layout source, fab package, a BOM with manufacturer part numbers, a tagged firmware release, a test report.
- Acceptance criteria for each deliverable, and how many days you have to accept or reject it.
- Milestones and payment, with billing triggered by accepted deliverables rather than by the calendar.
- Client-furnished items with dates: requirements, enclosure CAD, dev kits, lab access, and how quickly your team will turn around reviews.
Hardware clauses software SOWs forget
- Parts and fabrication: who orders, who pays, and whether pass-through costs carry a handling fee. Price it as its own line.
- Lead times: when a part or fab slot outside the engineer's control slips, the dependent milestones move day for day.
- Definition of done: firmware runs its intended function on the real board, not just compiles or passes a checksum.
- Review rounds: how many are included per milestone, stated as a number, and how extra rounds are billed.
- Respins: who pays when a board must be rebuilt because of a design error versus a requirement change.
- Certification: lab fees and formal testing are excluded unless stated, even when design-for-compliance work is included.
Change control and spending caps
- Hourly work runs under a not-to-exceed cap, with written approval required to go past it.
- Every change gets a short change order: what changes, the cost and schedule impact, and who approved it.
- Weekly status shows hours used against the cap and the next milestone date, so surprises surface early.
IP and handoff
- A present assignment of IP for all work product, plus a license to any background IP the contractor brings.
- Disclosure of every open-source and third-party component used, with its license.
- A handoff package: design notes, build and programming instructions, and access to every repository and account the work touched.
Common questions
The master agreement (often called an MSA or consulting agreement) sets the legal terms: liability, confidentiality, IP and payment terms. The statement of work defines one project under it: scope, deliverables, schedule and price. Keeping them separate lets you add new SOWs without renegotiating the legal terms.