Founding Flight-Hardware Engineer

Navi; San Francisco (CA); On-site; USD 160,000 - 230,000; Full time

Job summary

Navi is seeking a founding hardware engineer in San Francisco to own the entire physical product lifecycle—from bare-metal architecture through PCB design, ruggedized enclosure, embedded firmware, and fleet deployment. You’ll shape Version 2 of the Wave and set the technical voice for every decision that defines it.

In a high-autonomy environment, you’ll design cockpit-ready hardware, build real-time data pipelines, and drive certifications and OTA updates across hundreds of aircraft.

Qualifications

• 7+ years of experience in systems engineering, embedded edge compute, or connected hardware development with a track record of bringing a complex device to market.
• Experience designing hardware for rugged environments and certification processes.

Responsibilities

• Lead the end-to-end technical design of Navi's next-generation edge compute node — architecture, component selection, PCB layout, and mechanical enclosure
• Build hardware that is ruggedized for cockpit environments — thermal, vibrational, and environmental stress — and optimized for continuous wireless data transmission
• Architect real-time data pipelines for processing and streaming high-fidelity audio and complex telemetry from the edge to the cloud with minimal latency
• Own the hardware validation lifecycle — environmental testing, quality assurance, and securing regulatory and industry-specific certifications for hardware operating in aircraft
• Develop and oversee embedded firmware and edge processing logic — real-time operating systems, on-device compute, and fleet-wide OTA update infrastructure
• Guide the architecture of live cloud-based telemetry dashboards to ensure seamless data ingestion and real-time visibility from deployed devices
• Collaborate with software and ML engineers to ensure the hardware captures exactly what the intelligence layer needs to generate automated debriefs

Skills

Systems engineering

Embedded edge compute

Connected hardware

Embedded C/C++

Python

RTOS/Embedded Linux

Tools

PCB design

Microcontrollers

Wireless modules

Job description

Navi is seeking a founding hardware engineer in San Francisco to own the entire physical product lifecycle—from bare-metal architecture through PCB design, ruggedized enclosure, embedded firmware, and fleet deployment. You’ll shape Version 2 of the Wave and set the technical voice for every decision that defines it.

In a high-autonomy environment, you’ll design cockpit-ready hardware, build real-time data pipelines, and drive certifications and OTA updates across hundreds of aircraft.