Electrical Engineer

Generalist; San Francisco (CA); On-site; USD 140,000 - 190,000; Full time

Job summary

Generalist is building embodied foundation models and robotics hardware. We are hiring a Hardware Engineer to own electrical systems end-to-end, from napkin sketches to production. You will work on sensors, cameras, motor control, and SoC interfaces to power our robots and foundation models.

You’ll prototype sensor modules, validate with bench tests, and collaborate with mechanical and software teams on packaging, thermals, and system performance. Strong full-stack EE experience is essential.

Qualifications

• 5+ years shipping complex electronics products.
• Full stack EE ownership from concept to production.
• Experience with highly integrated SoC based designs and high-speed interfaces (e.g. MIPI CSI/DSI, USB, PCIe).
• Deep experience in imaging systems or motor control is a plus.
• Experience managing external suppliers, design partners, and ramp to production.

Responsibilities

• Owning electrical designs through the full lifecycle: concept, architecture, schematic capture, PCB layout, fabrication, bring-up, validation, and scaled production.
• Designing sensing and motor control electronics for robot systems with low latency and high fidelity.
• Designing multi-sensor architectures interfacing with latest generation SoCs.
• Architecting power delivery systems with complex power trees and sources like LiPo.
• Battery charging and power path management within tight power/thermal budgets.
• Writing/debugging embedded firmware (C, C++, Rust) for microcontrollers or Linux drivers.
• Partnering with mechanical engineers on enclosure integration, thermal design, and cabling.
• Driving designs to production: DFM/DFT, EMC/regulatory, test fixtures, and ramp with partners.

Skills

Electronics shipping

EE ownership

SoC design

High-speed interfaces

Imaging systems

Motor control

Firmware development

Supplier management

DFM/DFT

Tools

MIPI CSI/DSI

Job description

About Generalist

At Generalist, we are on a mission to build general intelligence for the physical world and make it useful to everyone. We believe the industries and homes of the future will depend on humans and machines working together in new ways. Robots can help us build more and get more done.

We build embodied foundation models, starting with a focus on dexterity. This requires advancing the frontiers of data, models, and hardware, to enable robots to intelligently interact with the physical world.

The company embraces both large-scale AI and robotics as core to its DNA. Our team of researchers, roboticists, and company builders come from OpenAI, Boston Dynamics, Google DeepMind, and other frontier labs—with a track record of shipping AI breakthroughs. Before Generalist, we pioneered large embodied multimodal models and vision-language-action models (PaLM-E, RT-2, Gemini Robotics), launched and scaled ChatGPT and GPT-4 to hundreds of millions of users, engineered the foundations of autonomous driving, built next-generation robots (Atlas, Spot, Stretch) and pushed the limits of what they can do (from parkour to manipulation, and testing robustness).

We are an equal opportunity employer, and we do not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, color, national origin, sex, sexual orientation, age, veteran status, disability, genetic information, or other applicable legally protected characteristic.

About the Role

Robots that learn from the world need hardware that can see, sense, and act within it. As a Hardware Engineer at Generalist, you will own electrical systems from end-to-end: from napkin sketch of concepts to schematic, layout, bring-up, and production. You’ll be responsible for custom hardware behind the cameras, sensors, and motor control that power our robots and the foundation models behind them.

This is a full stack EE role. In a typical week, you may be prototyping new sensor modules and motor controls, debugging MIPI signal integrity on the bench, writing firmware for a microcontroller, working with a contract manufacturer to push a design through DFM and certification, and managing rollout of new hardware designs to the robot fleet. You will collaborate daily with mechanical engineers on packaging, thermals, and integration; and with software engineers on drivers, interfaces, and system performance.

You’ll be responsible for:

• Owning electrical designs through the full lifecycle: concept, architecture, schematic capture, PCB layout, fabrication, bring-up, validation, and scaled production

• Designing sensing and motor control electronics for robot systems that are low latency, high fidelity, and robust in challenging environments with industrial interfaces (e.g. RS-485, CAN)

• Designing multi-sensor architectures interfacing with highly integrated latest generation SoCs

• Architecting power delivery systems with complex power trees and different sources (802.3bt, USB-C PD, LiPo)

• Battery charging and power path management within tight power and thermal budgets in compact enclosures

• Writing and debugging embedded firmware (C, C++, Rust) on microcontrollers or low level Linux device drivers for bring up, test, and production

• Partnering closely with mechanical engineers on enclosure integration, thermal design, connector selection and placement, cabling

• Driving designs to production: DFM and DFT, EMC and regulatory certification (FCC, CE), test fixture development, and manufacturing ramp with in-house resources, external design partners, or contract manufacturers

You might thrive in this role if you:

• Have 5+ years shipping complex electronics products

• Have demonstrated full stack EE ownership: taking ideas from concept to production

• Have experience with highly integrated SoC based designs (e.g. Qualcomm, NXP i.MX, Ambarella, etc) including high speed interfaces (e.g. MIPI CSI/DSI, USB 3.x, PCIe)

• Have deep experience in one or more of the following: imaging systems (image sensor selection, ISP tuning, frame synchronization), motor control (BLDC drivers, current sensing, encoders)

• Have high dynamic range in your work: from thinking deeply about high level system architecture choices and discussing their impact on model performance with our ML engineers, to getting your hands dirty with bench level soldering and rework, measuring timing delays on the oscilloscope, and swapping in new hardware for a live system test

• Have experience managing external suppliers, design partners, CM / JDMs, including schedule planning, materials sourcing, and production ramp