Founding Electrical Engineer

Location: San Francisco, USA – On-site. Employment: Full-time / Permanent. Industry: Robotics / Electronics / Hardware.

About the Role

We are looking for a Founding Electrical Engineer to join an early-stage engineering team developing a fully autonomous PCB fabrication machine. You will work across electronics, robotics, sensing, motion control, test & measurement, firmware, and software, taking systems from initial concepts through prototyping, debugging, and real-world deployment.

Responsibilities

• Design, prototype, and bring up custom circuit boards for sensing, actuation, measurement, and control.
• Build high-accuracy test fixtures, harnesses, and instrumentation.
• Develop electrical systems for precision autonomous machines operating at micron-level tolerances.
• Debug complex failures across electronics, firmware, software, and mechanical systems.
• Build an agentic/AI harness for the PCB fabrication machine.
• Own subsystems end-to-end, from circuit schematics, system architecture, and test plans to fully working systems.

Requirements

• Deep Electrical Engineering expertise is essential, with strong knowledge of circuits, signals, and failure modes.
• Hands-on experience designing, bringing up, and debugging circuit boards, with the ability to discuss performance, accuracy, and limitations using specific technical details.
• Experience at a hardware, robotics, or defense company where products were built for production and real-world use.
• Strong experience with oscilloscopes, logic analyzers, power supplies, signal generators, data acquisition systems, and custom test fixtures.
• Strong mechanical and systems intuition, including motors, sensors, thermal management, vibration, tolerances, grounding, noise, and packaging.
• Solid firmware/software fundamentals, with the ability to write code for hardware control, testing, and debugging.
• Degree in Electrical Engineering, Computer Science, Mechanical Engineering, Physics, or equivalent hands-on experience.
• Senior/Staff-level experience at a leading hardware, robotics, or deep-tech company is highly preferred.
• Ideal candidate traits: highly hands‑on Electrical Engineer who enjoys building and debugging hardware; experience working on real hardware, not just prototypes or demos; ability to move comfortably between electronics, firmware, software, and mechanical systems; enjoys taking a problem from a blank sheet of paper to a working machine; wants to be one of the early engineering team members building a completely new product.

Benefits

• 100% on‑site in San Francisco.
• Six days per week is considered normal, with long working days.
• Strong ownership of subsystems and problems, rather than individual tickets.
• A highly hands‑on environment where rapid prototyping and testing are prioritized over lengthy design cycles.
• Early‑stage startup environment requiring autonomy, creativity, and strong problem‑solving skills.