Electrical Hardware Engineer - Robotics Systems

Industry: Navigation & Defense Technology

Location: Austin, TX (Relocation Paid) - On-site for hardware work; flexible weekly schedule

Employer: Confidential

Employment Type: W2

Salary: Based on experience and fit.

About the Company

Our client builds a proprietary, offline, GPS-free positioning system that leverages existing vehicle sensor data, maps, and AI to deliver precise location without relying on GPS or cellular networks. The technology has been driven thousands of miles with zero signal and validated by the U.S. Department of Transportation. Founded by former special operators partnered with AI experts, the company is a rapidly growing startup serving the U.S. government, military, automotive manufacturers, logistics and delivery providers, and emergency services. You will have direct impact on critical applications, grow with the company at an early stage, and have room to take on leadership as it scales.

About the Role

We are looking for an Electrical Hardware Engineer who owns the board — from schematic capture and PCB layout through bring-up, debug, and validation, into production at volume. You will design boards, bring them up, and make sure every unit that ships works as intended. Firmware work and manufacturing test are part of the job, but in support of that core ownership, not separate tracks.

The other side of this role is integration with existing UGV platforms, typically in resource-constrained ROS2 or similar environments. This means reading sensor feeds from the vehicle and passing them through to the positioning and inference backend, and can also include designing and prototyping ruggedized compute platforms to install onto UGV platforms where no onboard compute is available. This is a hands-on, hardware-centric role based in Austin, TX.

Responsibilities

Support new product design and bring-up: power-on, debug, and validation of prototype hardware.
Help define and execute product test plans across engineering, pilot, and production builds.
Develop and maintain manufacturing testers (functional, end-of-line, and in-line).
Write test software and automation; integrate instruments, fixtures, and DUTs.
Develop and maintain low-level, hardware-specific firmware, including drivers for newly added components.
Integrate the device with UGV and robotics platforms in ROS2 or similar environments, reading vehicle sensor feeds into the backend.
Perform system integration and debug across the full HW / SW stack.
Run Gauge R&R studies and apply statistical methods to qualify test stations.
Partner with hardware, firmware, and operations teams to root-cause issues and drive yield improvements.
Maintain test code and documentation in GitHub.
Use modern AI-assisted tooling (LLMs) to move faster.

Requirements

Core (must-have):

5+ years of relevant experience.
BS in Electrical or Computer Engineering, or equivalent hands-on electronics design experience.
Proven ownership of PCB design — schematic capture and layout in Altium or an equivalent tool (e.g. KiCad) — not just familiarity.
Personal ownership of PCBA bring-up: power-on, debug, and validation of boards you designed, ideally carried through to production volume.
Hands-on with lab instruments: oscilloscopes, power supplies, JTAG.

Supporting:

Working proficiency in C/C++.
Exposure to system integration and test across hardware/firmware/software.
Comfortable in VS Code or Antigravity, Git/GitHub; working knowledge of LLM coding assistants.

Secondary:

Manufacturing test engineering: GR&R, SPC, yield analysis, NPI-to-HVM transition, functional/EOL testers.
Robotics: ROS2, UGV/robot integration, sensor work.
Defense or UGV/autonomy background.

Soft Skills

Entrepreneurial, proactive problem-solving mindset.
Thrives in a fast-paced startup environment where rapid iteration and bold ideas are the norm.
Strong collaborative, cross-functional team orientation.
Excellent communication abilities.

Robotics & Hardware Systems Engineer