Hardware Design Engineer

Pulse Forge, Inc.; Austin (TX); On-site; USD 100,000 - 140,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

On-site in Austin

Competitive salary

Job summary

PulseForge is seeking a Hardware Design Engineer to own hardware design from concept through release. You’ll work on analog/digital, power electronics, and high-speed testing, collaborating with software, mechanical, and manufacturing teams. This on-site role is based in Austin, TX with <5% travel and a competitive salary.

You will bring 2+ years of hands-on hardware experience, strong fundamentals, and the ability to work across lab equipment, prototyping, and production environments.

Qualifications

• B.S. in Electrical Engineering or equivalent.
• 2+ years of experience designing, building, and testing electronic hardware.
• Experience developing original circuits from first principles.

Responsibilities

• Develop schematics, select components, and evaluate design tradeoffs from concept through release.
• Plan and develop PCB layouts with signal integrity, thermal, and EMI considerations.
• Bring up, debug, characterize, and validate hardware at the bench.
• Design and execute test plans, fixtures, and experiments using data and measurements.
• Collaborate with software, mechanical, manufacturing, and applications teams for production deployment.
• Support sustaining work and product improvements on the installed base.

Skills

Analog design

Digital design

Power electronics

Debugging

Bench measurements

System integration

Data acquisition

FPGA/firmware development

Education

B.S. in Electrical Engineering

Tools

Altium

LTspice

PSIM

Vivado

Job description

Hardware Design Engineer

About PulseForge

At PulseForge, we’re expanding the boundaries of advanced manufacturing through pulsed-light technology. As an Electrical Design Engineer, you’ll design the hardware behind our systems from power delivery and precision instrumentation to controls and system integration. You’ll work and collaborate across electrical, software, mechanical, manufacturing, and applications teams to take new products from concept through customer deployment.

The Team

You’ll join a growing electrical engineering team at the heart of every sub-system developed, tested, supported, and shipped at PulseForge.

Every board that ships in a PulseForge system comes from this group. That means you'll see your work go from concept to production and hear directly how it performs in the field. There is very little distance between the engineer who designed the hardware and the outcome.

You’ll be working on and developing differing systems ranging from instrumentation, mixed-signal electronics, power systems, control and safety systems.

What You’ll Do

• Develop schematics, select components, and evaluate design tradeoffs on hardware you own from concept through release
• System specifications and requirement gathering and definition
• Plan and develop PCB layouts following best practices for signal integrity, thermal performance, noise immunity, and EMI mitigation
• Bring up, debug, characterize, and validate new designs at the bench
• Design and execute test plans, fixtures, and experiments, and use data, simulations, and measurements to guide design decisions
• Collaborate with software, mechanical, manufacturing, and applications teams to develop solutions that work not only on the bench, but in production and at customer sites
• Help with sustaining work and product improvements across our installed base.
• B.S. in Electrical Engineering or equivalent
• 2+ years of experience designing, building, and testing electronic hardware
• Experience developing original circuits and making design decisions from first principles, rather than only modifying existing designs.
• Substantial research, competition, hobby, or personal project experience may count toward this requirement when it demonstrates meaningful design, build, test, and debugging work
• Strong fundamentals and comfort working at the boundaries between analog, digital, and power.
• Comfortable at the bench with oscilloscopes, power supplies, electronic loads, and common lab equipment
• Strong debugging and troubleshooting skills
• High-voltage power electronics and high-energy power delivery
• Optical instrumentation and precision sensing
• Embedded control hardware and data acquisition
• Computing modules, firmware, and FPGA-based systems
• High-speed measurement and diagnostics
• Safety-critical industrial equipment
• Strong Analog Design experience
• Firmware or FPGA development, and comfort working across hardware and software during integration and debugging
• Power supply or mixed-signal circuit design
• Experience working on systems subject to harsh environments and demanding specifications
• You've designed something that was built and tested
• You enjoy working at the bench and using measurements to resolve technical questions and guide decisions
• You improve systems you inherit instead of simply documenting their flaws
• You're comfortable with ambiguity and can make progress without every requirement being fully defined
• You want to grow toward greater technical ownership, including leading subsystem designs and making well-supported design decisions
• Austin, Texas (On-Site)
• Travel less than 5
• $100,000-$140,000 annual salary

Technologies You’ll Encounter

You’ll work in Altium, LTspice, PSIM, and Vivado, and in a lab with scopes, DMMs, signal generators, bolometers, and soldering and rework stations.

You do not need experience in every area above. We are looking for engineers with strong fundamentals, hands‑on experience, curiosity, and a willingness to learn.

How You’ll Grow

Within your first six months, you’ll support released products and own defined portions of active development programs. Within your first year, we expect you to be originating circuits and carrying complete subsystems from concept through release. We’re making this hire with the expectation that the role will grow into significant technical ownership over time.

Location & Compensation

PulseForge is building advanced manufacturing technology that is redefining what and how materials can be processed and how products are made. If you are passionate about building hardware, solving difficult engineering problems, and seeing your work deployed in real-world systems, we would love to hear from you.

Salary Range: $95k- $130k annual; salary is commensurate on experience.