Lead Wearable Hardware Engineer — From Lab to Production

Empathy Talent; San Francisco (CA); On-site; USD 180,000 - 220,000; Full time

Job summary

Empathy Talent is seeking a hands-on hardware leader to transform a laboratory research system into a compact wearable suitable for real-world use in San Francisco. The role spans sensing, mixed‑signal electronics, embedded and FPGA systems, high‑speed data acquisition, wireless comms, batteries, and manufacturability.

You’ll work with sensing and ML engineers to preserve signal quality while reducing size, power use, and system complexity, with a long‑term goal of integrating into glasses.

Qualifications

• Experience taking technically challenging hardware from prototype toward production.
• Background in physiological or biosignal sensing, or tightly constrained hardware systems.
• Comfort debugging boards, reading schematics, and coordinating with firmware/FPGA teams.

Responsibilities

• Design custom mixed-signal, sensing, compute, power, and communications electronics.
• Integrate ADCs, DACs, FPGAs, MCUs, sensor front ends, memory, and wireless systems.
• Build portable prototypes reliable enough for large‑scale data collection.
• Miniaturize laboratory hardware into a wearable, with goal of glasses integration.
• Optimize signal integrity, noise, thermals, power, and EMI.
• Oversee embedded firmware, data acquisition pipelines, device control and updates.

Skills

Physiological sensing

Robotics

Embedded systems

FPGA

Signal integrity

Tools

Verilog/VHDL

ECAD tools

ADC/DAC integration

Job description

Empathy Talent is seeking a hands-on hardware leader to transform a laboratory research system into a compact wearable suitable for real-world use in San Francisco. The role spans sensing, mixed‑signal electronics, embedded and FPGA systems, high‑speed data acquisition, wireless comms, batteries, and manufacturability.

You’ll work with sensing and ML engineers to preserve signal quality while reducing size, power use, and system complexity, with a long‑term goal of integrating into glasses.