Lead Electrical Engineer, Brain-Computer Interfaces

Slope; San Francisco (CA); On-site; USD 180,000 - 240,000; Full time

Job summary

Merge Labs is a frontier research lab advancing brain-computer interfaces with high-bandwidth electronics and robust measurement workflows. The Principal/Staff Electrical Engineer will own architecture, design, validation, and productization of core electronics systems and calibration rigs.

The role spans mixed-signal design, high-speed digital, ASIC/FPGA integration, automated test, and manufacturing transfer, partnering with scientists to replace fragile bench setups with reusable

Qualifications

• Deep experience designing complex electronic systems with board bring-up and manufacturing transfer.
• Advanced mixed-signal expertise with low-noise analog and high-speed digital integration.
• Strong hands-on debugging using bench instruments and test setups to isolate root cause.

Responsibilities

• Architect, design, simulate, lay out, bring up, and verify complex electronics integrating custom ASICs, FPGAs, MCUs, high-speed digital interfaces, low-noise analog, clocks/triggers, and power delivery.
• Own critical PCBAs and system-level electrical architecture, including SI/PI, grounding, clocking, EMC/EMI, thermal/electrical interactions, interconnect, and DFM/DFT tradeoffs.
• Develop and deploy automated test and characterization infrastructure, including custom test hardware, integration firmware, and Python/C/C++ tooling for bring-up, verification, data capture, and manufacturing test.
• Build scientist-facing electronic instrumentation—signal-conditioning modules, calibration fixtures, sensor/actuator interfaces, trigger/clock distribution, reference standards, custom DAQ/test boards, and other reusable hardware that turns expert-dependent bench setups into repeatable workflows.
• Define quantitative performance and acceptance criteria for those systems, including noise, gain, linearity, bandwidth, dynamic range, timing skew/jitter, channel variation, drift, calibration, and measurement uncertainty as appropriate; validate with data and document procedures so another user can reproduce the result.
• Own the technical relationship with design vendors and PCBA assembly/test houses, defining DFT strategies, inspection/test criteria, yield targets, failure-analysis loops, and production release requirements.
• Collaborate closely with Mechanical, ASIC/FPGA, Firmware, Software/Platform, Clinical, and scientists to ensure electrical systems meet device-performance, measurement-quality, usability, and experimental requirements.
• Mentor engineers and establish best practices for design reviews, documentation, verification, test automation, and cross-functional hardware integration.

Skills

Python

C/C++

Mixed-signal design

High-speed digital

Debugging

Tools

Oscilloscopes

Spectrum analyzers

Logic analyzers

Electronic loads

Job description

Merge Labs is a frontier research lab advancing brain-computer interfaces with high-bandwidth electronics and robust measurement workflows. The Principal/Staff Electrical Engineer will own architecture, design, validation, and productization of core electronics systems and calibration rigs.

The role spans mixed-signal design, high-speed digital, ASIC/FPGA integration, automated test, and manufacturing transfer, partnering with scientists to replace fragile bench setups with reusable