Electrical Engineer - Fully Remote | Up to $120/hr

Obsidian; San Francisco (CA); Remote; USD 140,000 - 190,000; Full time

Job summary

Mercor is seeking experienced Electrical and Hardware Engineers to advance an AI research initiative. You will bring hands-on hardware expertise to complex tasks, review designs, and troubleshoot real-world hardware systems in production environments.

Ideal candidates have 5+ years in industry with at least 3 years hands-on hardware work, and can act as the responsible engineer for substantial hardware workflows across RF, power electronics, analog/mixed-signal, PCB, and signal integrity domains.

Qualifications

• 5+ years of professional industry experience, including hands-on hardware work.
• Direct experience as the responsible engineer for substantial hardware workflows.
• Experience debugging real hardware with lab equipment and instrumentation.

Responsibilities

• Apply hands-on electrical and hardware engineering expertise to technically complex tasks.
• Review and evaluate hardware designs, analyses, and troubleshooting approaches.
• Analyse design trade-offs, failure modes, measurements, and system-level decisions.
• Assess the practicality and correctness of engineering solutions for real-world hardware problems.
• Identify errors, missing assumptions, and potential design or implementation risks.
• Develop or review rigorous engineering problems, reference solutions, and evaluation criteria.
• Draw on hardware development, validation, bring-up, debugging, manufacturing and testing experience.
• Provide clear technical feedback grounded in real engineering experience.

Skills

RF systems

Antenna design

Power electronics

Analog/mixed-signal

PCB design

Signal integrity

Job description

Mercor is seeking experienced Electrical and Hardware Engineers to support an advanced engineering and AI research initiative with a leading technology organisation. We are looking for deeply hands-on engineers who have designed, built, tested, brought up, debugged, or validated real-world hardware systems in production environments.

Relevant backgrounds include:

• RF / Antenna Engineering
• Power Electronics Engineering
• Analog / Mixed-Signal Engineering
• Hardware / PCB Design Engineering
• Signal Integrity Engineering

This role is particularly well suited for engineers who have worked directly on complex physical products and can bring practical engineering judgment to evaluating technical designs, troubleshooting workflows, and real-world hardware problems.

Key Responsibilities

• Apply hands-on electrical and hardware engineering expertise to technically complex engineering tasks.
• Review and evaluate hardware designs, engineering workflows, technical analyses, and troubleshooting approaches.
• Analyse design trade-offs, failure modes, measurements, test results, and system-level engineering decisions.
• Assess the technical correctness and practicality of engineering solutions generated for real-world hardware problems.
• Identify errors, missing assumptions, unrealistic recommendations, and potential design or implementation risks.
• Develop or review technically rigorous engineering problems, reference solutions, evaluation criteria, or supporting documentation.
• Draw on practical experience with hardware development, validation, bring-up, debugging, manufacturing, and testing.
• Provide clear technical feedback grounded in real engineering experience and industry best practices.

You’re a Strong Fit If You Have

• 5+ years of professional industry experience, including at least 3 years of recent, actively hands-on experience in hardware development, testing, bring-up, validation, or troubleshooting.
• Direct experience serving as the responsible engineer for substantial portions of a hardware development or engineering workflow, rather than solely managing engineering teams or projects.
• Deep expertise in at least one of the following areas:
  • RF systems, antennas, electromagnetic design, or RF validation
  • Power electronics, power conversion, motor drives, or power delivery
  • Analog or mixed-signal circuit design
  • PCB architecture, schematic design, board bring-up, or hardware debugging
  • Signal integrity, power integrity, high-speed interfaces, or system-level electrical validation
• Strong understanding of practical engineering constraints including component selection, tolerances, measurement, manufacturing, reliability, thermal considerations, and system integration.
• Experience debugging real hardware using relevant laboratory equipment, simulation tools, and engineering instrumentation.
• Ability to explain technical decisions, trade-offs, and failure modes clearly and rigorously.

Preferred Background

Experience working for a company that designs and manufactures physical hardware products is strongly preferred. Relevant organisations may include, but are not limited to:

• Aerospace & Defence:Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, RTX, Boeing, General Atomics, L3Harris, BAE Systems, General Dynamics, Honeywell Aerospace, Textron
• Space:Blue Origin, Rocket Lab, Relativity Space, Firefly Aerospace, Sierra Space, Astranis, Planet, Maxar, Axiom Space
• Automotive & EV:Tesla, Rivian, General Motors, Ford, Lucid, Waymo, Zoox, Aptiv, Bosch
• Semiconductors:NVIDIA, Qualcomm, Intel, Analogue Devices, Texas Instruments, Broadcom, Marvell, Micron, NXP, Infineon
• Consumer Electronics & Computing:Apple, Google Hardware, Meta Reality Labs, Microsoft Devices, Amazon, Samsung, Garmin, Sonos
• Drones, eVTOL & Robotics:Skydio, Shield AI, Zipline, Joby Aviation, Archer Aviation, Boston Dynamics, Figure, Agility Robotics, Wing
• Industrial, Energy & Medical Devices:Siemens, GE Aerospace, GE Vernova, ABB, Schneider Electric, Rockwell Automation, Enphase, Medtronic, Intuitive Surgical

Candidates from comparable hardware-focused organisations are equally encouraged to apply.

Why Join

• Apply your engineering expertise to technically challenging problems at the intersection of advanced hardware engineering and AI research.
• Work on projects where practical, real-world engineering experience is highly valued.
• Help improve how advanced AI systems reason about electrical engineering, hardware design, testing, and troubleshooting.
• Contribute remotely with flexible engagement structures alongside experienced engineers and researchers.
• Work on problems that require genuine engineering judgment rather than purely theoretical knowledge.