Principal Electrical Engineer - Lead Autonomous Systems

Freeform; Los Angeles (CA); On-site; USD 180,000 - 260,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Medical + Dental + Vision

Stock options

401(k) plan

Relocation assistance

Paid time off

Life insurance

Casual dress & flexible hours

Free daily catered meals

Parental leave

Job summary

Freeform is seeking a Principal Electrical Engineer in Los Angeles to design and develop custom electronics and compute systems for AI-native metal 3D printing factory systems. You will lead senior engineering efforts across high-performance compute, embedded hardware, and robotics, solving challenging problems with a first-principles approach.

You will drive electrical architecture, supplier decisions, and verification, while mentoring teams and ensuring robust, scalable solutions.

Qualifications

• Broad electrical engineering background with first-principles problem solving.
• Technical lead and system owner across full lifecycle.
• 15+ years designing and delivering complex electrical hardware.
• Advanced degree in electrical engineering.
• Experience with heterogeneous compute environments (FPGA, GPU, mixed architectures).
• Experience with sensors, high-speed imaging, telemetry systems.
• Embedded microcontroller design and firmware.
• Experience with high-speed data acquisition, motion/optomechanical systems, and robotics.
• Familiarity with industrial automation technologies and robotics.

Responsibilities

• Act as a technical lead and drive architectural decisions, execution quality, and accountability across the full lifecycle.
• Own electrical architecture, product requirements, and component selection.
• Lead bring-up, debugging, documentation, productization, manufacturing, and testing.
• Schedule management and ensuring continuous rate of innovation.
• Collaborate with other engineering disciplines to solve hard problems.

Skills

First-principles problem solving

Technical leadership

System architecture

Debugging with lab equipment

Modeling/simulation

Cross-disciplinary collaboration

Project management

Education

Bachelor’s degree in electrical/computer engineering

Master’s or PhD in electrical engineering

Tools

FPGA

GPU

Embedded firmware

High-speed data acquisition

Motion control systems

Job description

Freeform is seeking a Principal Electrical Engineer in Los Angeles to design and develop custom electronics and compute systems for AI-native metal 3D printing factory systems. You will lead senior engineering efforts across high-performance compute, embedded hardware, and robotics, solving challenging problems with a first-principles approach.

You will drive electrical architecture, supplier decisions, and verification, while mentoring teams and ensuring robust, scalable solutions.