Hardware Engineering Intern

meter; San Francisco (CA); On-site; USD 55,000 - 69,000; Part time

Benefits offered by this job

Relocation stipend

Housing stipend

Job summary

Meter is hiring Hardware Engineering Interns for a 12-week program in San Francisco. You will own a well-scoped project, from question to evidence-backed recommendation, with outcomes used by the hardware team.

Day-to-day tasks vary; you may prototype power adapters, evaluate components, write test plans, and collaborate with manufacturing partners in Taiwan to understand capabilities and scalability.

Qualifications

• Pursuing a degree in electrical, computer, or mechanical engineering.
• Able to break ambiguous technical problems into engineering questions.
• Experience building/test­ing hardware on a design team, lab, or at home.
• Comfortable working with physical systems: PCBAs, mechanical assemblies, test equipment, prototypes, manufacturing data.

Responsibilities

• Design, build, and test electrical or mechanical prototypes for Meter products.
• Evaluate components, technologies, architectures, materials, and suppliers.
• Write test plans and characterize performance, reliability, thermals, acoustics, power, and system behavior.
• Coordinate with manufacturing partners to understand capabilities, constraints, cost, and scalability.
• Present findings and recommendations to the hardware team at internship end.

Skills

Electrical engineering

Hardware prototyping

Experimental methods

PCB/embedded

Education

EE/CE/ME degree

Job description

Meter is a vertically integrated networking company. Hardware, software, services, ISP, and autonomous networks run on a single data pipeline, from the local network to the data center.

Most of the networking industry treats hardware as a commodity-we don’t. Build the hardware right, and everything above it gets better. Meter designs its own Firewalls, Switches, Wireless Access Points, PDUs, and Gateways because customers subscribe to the network instead of buying individual boxes; we're accountable for how the hardware performs for years. We sweat details most people never see, like the logo stamped inside the enclosure and the sound spec on our fans. Great hardware takes more than designing circuits and shipping products: It means thinking hard about performance, reliability, manufacturability, supply chain, installation, sustainability, and the full product lifecycle.

We’re hiring Hardware Engineering Interns to solve real technical problems across Meter’s hardware engineering and operations teams. Over 12 weeks, you’ll own a well-scoped project picked to fit your interests, your experience, and the problems that matter most to Meter:

• Next-generation power adapters: Prototype compact, efficient power supplies that could ship in future Meter products.

• Hardware lifecycle and sustainability: Figure out how Meter hardware can be refurbished, reused, or recycled, and what it takes to extend its life.

• Installer tooling: Build tools, fixtures, or diagnostic devices that make Meter networks faster to install and troubleshoot.

• Acoustics and thermal systems: Design quiet, efficient cooling for future high-performance networking and data center products.

• Supply chain intelligence: Use component and supplier data to spot risks and bottlenecks before they hit a hardware build.

What success looks like

You’ll take a meaningful hardware problem from an open question to a recommendation backed by evidence, and leave behind something the hardware team can use: data, prototypes, test results, engineering requirements, supplier evaluations, or tools.

Your day-to-day will depend on your project, but you may:

• Design, build, and test electrical or mechanical prototypes for future Meter products

• Evaluate components, technologies, architectures, materials, and suppliers

• Write test plans and characterize performance, reliability, thermals, acoustics, power, and other system-level behavior

• Work with our manufacturing partners in Taiwan to understand their capabilities, constraints, cost, and scalability

• Present your findings and recommendations to the hardware team at the end of the internship

Who you are

You’re curious, hands-on, and you learn by building. You’re a good fit if:

• You’re pursuing a degree in electrical engineering, computer engineering, mechanical engineering, or a related technical field

• You like taking an ambiguous technical problem and breaking it into questions you can answer through engineering and experimentation

• You’ve built, tested, debugged, or taken apart hardware on a design team, in a lab, or at home, or you’re eager to start

• You’re comfortable working with physical systems: PCBAs, mechanical assemblies, test equipment, prototypes, manufacturing data, or supplier samples

• You can explain technical findings clearly and turn your work into recommendations others can act on

Experience with PCB design, CAD, embedded systems, thermal design, or data analysis is a plus, but none of it is required.

Above all, we’re looking for people who want to understand how great hardware gets built.

Why Meter?

The internet runs the world. Every purchase you make and every video call you join is packets moving through networks. But those networks haven’t changed in decades. They’re brittle, complex, and surprisingly hard to set up for a business.

We started Meter to build better networks, and that meant building everything ourselves: our own enterprise hardware, intuitive software, and streamlined operations. Today we deploy those networks at scale. Bridgewater, Lyft, Reddit, and the San Antonio Spurs rely on Meter to keep thousands of employees and locations online.

Our bet is simple: Everyone will use the internet more than they do today. Meter is building the networking stack that makes connectivity as easy and reliable as water or electricity.

Compensation

• The estimated pay for this role is $40-$50 per hour. This role is also eligible for a relocation and housing stipend.