Robotics Engineer (Electrical / Mechatronics)

About the role

We are building an autonomous field robot that drives rebar foundations into the ground at precise coordinates across utility-scale solar sites. You will own everything electrical on this machine: power architecture, motor control, sensing, wiring, and the embedded systems that make a violent, vibrating piece of heavy equipment behave like a precision robot. You'll work shoulder to shoulder with the mechanical lead: they own the structure and mechanisms; you own the electrons and the signals. This is a ground-floor role on a new hardware program, with founding-team-level ownership and direct line of sight to a 100+ MW project in construction. Expect to spend real time in the dirt at our Texas pilot site with a multimeter in hand.

Responsibilities

• Own the robot's electrical architecture end to end: battery/power system, power distribution, motor controllers, e-stop and safety circuits, connectors and harnessing that survive dust, heat, and vibration.
• Select and integrate motors, drives, and actuators with the mechanical team; tune motor control for locomotion and for the pile-driving tool head.
• Design and build the sensing stack: encoders, IMU, load/force sensing on the driving mechanism, RTK-GNSS integration, limit and proximity sensing.
• Develop embedded firmware and real-time control: CAN bus architecture, microcontroller/PLC-level control loops, interlocks, fault handling, and telemetry/logging.
• Stand up the electrical test and bring-up process: bench testing, HIL where it makes sense, field debugging and root-cause analysis.
• Design for the environment: EMI on a machine full of motor drives, thermal management in West Texas summers, ingress protection, and serviceability by field techs.
• Support the path from one prototype to a small fleet: wire harness DFM, documentation, and supplier management.

Qualifications

• 4–10+ years of electrical engineering experience with meaningful time at a robotics company or on mobile/field robotic systems.
• Deep fluency in the electrical side of robots: power electronics, motor control (BLDC/servo and/or hydraulic proportional control), sensor integration, and signal integrity in noisy environments.
• Hands-on embedded skills: comfortable writing firmware in C/C++ for real-time control, working with CAN/EtherCAT, and debugging with a scope.
• Track record of taking an electromechanical system from schematic to working hardware in the real world.
• Pragmatic safety mindset: functional safety, e-stop design, and interlocks for a machine that exerts serious force.

Nice to have

• High-power battery systems.
• Electrical control of hydraulics.
• Off-highway, agricultural, or construction equipment.
• ROS 2 or similar middleware.
• Harsh-environment or outdoor robotics.

Salary and Benefits

• Up to $15K Relocation bonus
• Unlimited PTO
• Health, Dental, Vision insurance
• $1K monthly stipend for meals