Hardware Tech Lead

Hardware Tech Lead

🛠 Hardware Tech Lead | Wearable Devices | Physical AI

💰 $300,000 to $400,000 base + bonus

📍 San Francisco Bay Area, onsite

📦 Own a device from spec to mass production

Most hardware engineers own one part of a device. This role owns all of it.

Robot learning runs on real-world data, and that data is only as good as the hardware capturing it. Cameras out of sync, poor calibration or a device nobody can wear for a full shift, and the data is worthless before it reaches a model.

We've partnered with a well-funded AI company that collects real-world data to train robotics and embodied AI. At the heart of that is a head-mounted, multi-sensor capture device used in the field at scale. They need a Hardware Tech Lead to own it.

You'll own:

📐 System architecture and requirements across cameras, IMUs, pose tracking, power and thermals

⏱ Hardware-level time sync, so streams line up when they're captured, not fixed afterwards

🏭 ODM selection and the full EVT, DVT and PVT path to volume production

🔌 Schematics, PCB review, embedded firmware and board bring-up

🧪 Setting up the hardware lab, and spotting IP worth patenting

This is not a vendor-management role with a fancy title.

You'll be on the bench with a scope and a logic analyser, debugging boards yourself. You'll also be the person who holds the factory to spec.

We're looking for someone who:

→ Has 7+ years in hardware, with at least one device taken from concept to mass production

→ Has managed ODMs or contract manufacturers in Asia directly, including NRE, factory audits and yield

→ Knows camera systems well: image sensors, MIPI CSI-2, ISP pipelines, shutter and exposure sync

→ Writes embedded C/C++ on MCUs and SoCs, on an RTOS or embedded Linux

→ Understands wearable constraints: battery, power budget and heat on someone's head

→ Ideally speaks Mandarin, given the manufacturing partnerships

There's no large hardware org to hide behind. You'll design it, debug it and ship it.

Interested? Apply here or message me directly. All conversations are confidential. 🛠

Location: San Francisco Bay Area (onsite)

Employment type: Full-time

Hardware Engineering | Wearables | Embedded Systems | Camera Systems | NPI | ODM | Physical AI