Principal Hardware Engineer

Aurelius Systems; San Francisco (CA); On-site; USD 180,000 - 300,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Competitive salary

Equity

Health insurance

Travel opportunities

Daily lunches and snacks

Stipend for mobility

Job summary

Aurelius Systems in San Francisco is seeking a Principal Hardware Engineer to guide architecture and ship hardware from prototype to field deployment. You will lead by example across mechanical, electrical, power, embedded, and optics teams.

This is a technical leadership role, focusing on architecture, risk surfacing, and hands-on execution rather than people management, with close collaboration with founders and engineering leadership.

Qualifications

• 10+ years designing and shipping complex hardware systems.

Responsibilities

• Provide architectural direction across hardware stack from mechanical to embedded integration.
• Make technical decisions from concept through production readiness.
• Identify and surface risk early; mentor junior engineers by example.
• Hands-on execution when fast resolution is needed to move the program forward.
• Set design review standards and ensure high-quality documentation.

Skills

Hardware architecture

Senior systems engineering

Cross-disciplinary leadership

Real-world durability

Prototype to production

Job description

Aurelius Systems is a VC-backed defense tech startup developing autonomous, edge-deployed directed energy systems for counter-UAS. We make laser systems to shot down drones.

Our small team includes engineers, former US military operators, and experts, focused on creating the first cost-effective, reliable, and robust laser weapon system.

The Role and Your Impact:

We need a Principal Hardware Engineer to bring senior technical judgment across Archimedes hardware. You are a highly experienced builder who has seen systems go the full way. From a working prototype to hardware that ships and survives in the field. You've done it more than once. You know where systems break, where teams get stuck, and how to keep both moving.

This is a technical leadership seat, not a people management seat. Your role is to raise the level of the hardware org through experience, architectural judgment, and hands-on execution. You lead by example, you unblock hard problems, and you set the technical bar for how hardware gets designed and shipped at Aurelius.

You'll partner with the founders and the Director of Engineering on architecture and roadmap. You'll work directly alongside mechanical, electrical, power, embedded, and optics engineers on the hardest problems the team is facing.

What You'll Own:

• Architectural direction across the hardware stack from mechanical, electrical, power, to embedded integration
• Technical decisions on the hardest problems, from concept through production readiness
• Pattern recognition and technical review like surfacing risk early, and catching what junior engineers miss
• Hands-on execution when the problem needs your specific experience to solve fast
• Design and manufacturing trades across cost, mass, reliability, schedule, and field performance
• Cross-team judgment when hardware, controls, optics, and software collide
• Setting the technical bar for design reviews, documentation quality, and release standards
• Mentorship by example. Engineers should learn from watching you work, not from being managed by you

What We're Looking For:

• 10+ years designing and shipping complex hardware systems
• Track record taking systems the full development cycle from prototype through manufacturing and deployment
• Senior IC or technical leadership background at hardware companies that actually shipped
• Deep technical judgment across at least two of: mechanical, electrical, power electronics, embedded systems
• Pattern recognition from having built real systems before, especially systems that had to survive real-world conditions
• Comfort operating as the technical anchor on a small team, not the manager of a large one

Nice to Haves:

• Directed energy, laser, or high-power systems experience
• Defense or aerospace program experience with MIL-STD or equivalent qualification
• Founder or founding engineer background at a hardware company
• Manufacturing depth as-in you've stood up production lines or worked closely with the manufacturers who do
• Active security clearance or ability to obtain one

How You Operate:

• Extreme bias for action. You'd rather build a prototype tomorrow than model it for a month
• You characterize your own systems before the field does
• Comfortable with ambiguity and fast iteration in a startup environment
• You debug from first principles, not intuition alone
• Clear communicator across mechanical, electrical, optical, and software teams
• Self directed. You identify what needs to happen next and do it without being told

Why Join Aurelius Systems:

• Build more in 1 month than most engineers build in 1 year. We field test weekly. Your work goes downrange, not into a filing cabinet.
• Career velocity is real. At ~10 engineers, there are no layers between you and impact.
• Work on a problem that actually matters. Small cheap drones are changing warfare. Our laser systems are the asymmetric answer — infinite magazine, near zero cost per shot, scalable to every base, border, facility, and truck.
• Join the densest defense startup ecosystem in the country. California is where the next generation of defense companies are being built.

How We Work:

Core hours are Monday through Friday, 9 to 6. When we're sprinting toward a demo or field test, the team ramps up — nights, weekends, whatever it takes to ship. When the sprint lands, we ramp down. We don't manufacture intensity for show.

• Competitive salary and equity
• United Health Care medical, dental, and vision coverage
• Travel to field test events and range days
• Covered daily lunches and office snacks and drinks
• E-bike and scooter stipend up to $500
• Direct access to leadership and real ownership over your work

Export Control Notice:

This role requires access to export-controlled information or items that require U.S. Person status. As defined by U.S. law, individuals who are any one of the following are considered to be a U.S. Person: (1) U.S. citizens, (2) legal permanent residents (a.k.a. green card holders), and (3) certain protected classes of asylees and refugees, as defined in 8 U.S.C. 1324b(a)(3).