Electrical Engineer

Generalist; San Mateo, Somerville (CA, MA); On-site; USD 140,000 - 200,000; Full time

Job summary

Generalist is seeking a Hardware Engineer to own electrical systems end-to-end for robot hardware. You will prototype sensor modules, develop motor control electronics, and ensure reliability through rigorous testing and production ramp.

You will collaborate with mechanical and software teams, design for manufacturability, and drive projects from napkin sketch to field deployment in a fast-moving robotics environment.

Qualifications

• Requires BS in Electrical Engineering or related field.
• 5+ years shipping complex electronics products.
• Experience with high-speed interfaces and multi-sensor architectures.

Responsibilities

• Own electrical designs from concept to production.
• Design sensing and motor control electronics for robust, low-latency operation.
• Architect power delivery and battery charging within compact enclosures.
• Write and debug embedded firmware (C/C++, Rust) and low-level Linux drivers.
• Collaborate with mechanical and software teams on integration and testing.
• Drive designs to production with DFM/DFT, EMC, and regulatory certification.

Skills

Full stack EE ownership

MIPI interfaces

Power electronics

EMC/DFM/DFT

Firmware development

High-speed interfaces

Supplier management

Linux drivers

Education

Bachelor's degree in Electrical Engineering

Tools

Altium/PCB design

CAN

RS-485

USB-C PD

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