Principal Hardware Engineer, Embedded and Prototyping

ButterflyMX, Inc.; Irvine (CA); On-site; USD 120,000 - 180,000; Full time

Job summary

A leading company in proptech is seeking a visionary hardware engineer to join their innovative team. This full-time role is focused on designing and developing next-generation hardware products that integrate advanced technology and user-friendly design. The ideal candidate will have extensive experience in hardware, firmware, and system integration, along with a collaborative mindset to push the boundaries of technology.

Benefits

Comprehensive Medical, Dental, and Vision plans

401(k) with matching

13 paid holidays

25 PTO days

Paid Family Leave

Quarterly self-care stipends

Flexible healthcare spending accounts

Qualifications

• 8+ years of experience in hardware engineering.
• Hands-on experience with embedded systems and analog/digital electronics.
• Expertise in firmware development using C/C++.

Responsibilities

• Conceptualize and design innovative hardware solutions.
• Integrate hardware with firmware and networking protocols.
• Prototype and iterate designs rapidly based on testing.

Skills

Problem Solving

System Design

Lateral Thinking

Troubleshooting

Electronics

Education

Bachelor's Degree in Electrical Engineering or related field

Tools

Oscilloscopes

Logic Analyzers

Spectrum Analyzers

Job description

Our Mission:
ButterflyMX is on a mission to empower people to open and manage doors & gates from a smartphone. Our products are installed in more than 17,000+ multifamily, commercial, gated communities, and student-housing properties worldwide, including properties developed, owned, and managed by the most trusted names in real estate. Our features are designed for developers, owners, property managers, and tenants and our products lower operating costs and improve tenant satisfaction.

Our Solution:
Developers and owners no longer need to run building wiring or install in-unit hardware. Property managers can grant building access, revoke permissions, and review entry logs from an online dashboard. Residents can open doors from their smartphones, issue visitor access, and see who is trying to enter the building.

Our Culture & Values:
Fantastic people are the key to our success. As a distributed, primarily remote workforce, we’re looking for more intelligent, passionate, collaborative, ai-forward, and down-to-earth individuals to join our growing team. We’re driven by a shared commitment to excellence and innovation, grounded in our core values: We delight our customers, We take ownership, We are a community of collaborators, We speak up, We think big and do small, and We are tenacious.

We are seeking a visionary hardware engineer who sees beyond individual components and thinks at a system level-down to the electrons and bits. This role is about creating, experimenting, and pushing boundaries to develop game-changing new proptech products that seamlessly integrate hardware, firmware, and networked intelligence.

You will be responsible for conceptualizing, designing, and prototyping groundbreaking hardware solutions. You must be equally comfortable with digital and analog electronics, microcontroller firmware, real-world physics, and network communication protocols. You’ll need strong hands-on skills, the ability to troubleshoot at every level, and the creativity to solve problems in unexpected ways.

This is not a traditional engineering role—it’s an innovation-first, hands-on opportunity to create the next generation of advanced, lovable PropTech hardware products. This is a full-time role based in our R&D lab in Irvine, CA.

End-to-End System Design & Innovation

• Own the early product lifecycle from concept to prototype into functional system, blending electrical, firmware, and mechanical aspects.
• Think at every level—from circuit-level signal integrity to system-level software integration—ensuring seamless, high-performance operation.
• Integrate sensors, microcontrollers, communication buses and networking into compact, reliable, and manufacturable designs.
• Prototype rapidly and iterate based on real-world testing, learning through experimentation.

Electronics Design & Embedded Systems

• Apply deep expertise in digital and analog electronics to design high-performance, low-noise, and power-efficient circuits.
• Design and implement robust power delivery systems, analog front-ends, signal processing circuits, and high-speed digital buses.
• Hands-on troubleshooting with multimeters, oscilloscopes, logic analyzers, and spectrum analyzers to diagnose and resolve issues from nanoseconds to milliseconds to minutes.
• Master component selection and circuit optimization to balance performance, power consumption, cost, and manufacturability.

Firmware Development & Embedded Logic

• Write and optimize bare-metal and RTOS-based microcontroller firmware, ensuring efficient execution at both low-level (register access, bitwise operations) and high-level (protocol stacks, logic design).
• Design robust, low-latency firmware architectures for real-time control, sensor data processing, and wireless communication.

Communication Protocols & Networking

• Document and implement custom communication protocols, creating Interface Control Documents (ICDs) and ensuring robust data exchange.
• Develop and experiment with lightweight IoT services, enabling secure device-to-cloud interaction through efficient APIs and networked communication.

Mechanical & Physical Interaction Awareness

• Understand how mechanical constraints, thermal considerations, and real-world environments affect electronic designs.
• Collaborate with our mechanical engineer to ensure optimal integration of hardware components in rugged, manufacturable enclosures.
• Collaborate with our electrical engineer to design with manufacturability and assembly in mind, optimizing PCB layouts and mechanical interfaces.

Experimental Thinking & Lateral Problem Solving

• Approach problems holistically, considering physics, software logic, electronics, and real-world constraints simultaneously.
• Apply lateral thinking skills to discover unconventional solutions that outperform standard approaches.
• Push the boundaries of what’s possible, constantly seeking improvements in performance, efficiency, and reliability.

• 8+ years of experience taking products from concept through prototyping to production, including system architecture and new product introduction (NPI).
• Demonstrated experience blending electrical, firmware, and mechanical components.
• Strong background in mechatronics integration, hardware-software co-design, and cross-functional prototyping.
• Skilled in designing high-speed digital and low-noise analog circuits.
• Experience with ADC design, power regulation, signal integrity, filtering, and impedance matching.
• Hands-on experience developing firmware at the bare-metal and RTOS levels. Proficient in C/C++, I2C, SPI, UART, real-time control, and low-level register programming.
• Expertise using tools such as oscilloscopes, logic analyzers, and spectrum analyzers. Strong track record of root-cause analysis in multi-domain system failures.
• Experience with physical layer protocols (e.g., CAN, UART, SPI) and higher-level communication stacks (e.g., MQTT, REST, WebSockets). Familiarity with secure cloud-connected embedded systems.
• Comfortable with hands-on prototyping using breadboards, quick-turn PCBs, and participating in hackathons or fast-paced hardware bring-up cycles.
• Collaborative experience with mechanical engineers on enclosure design, thermal considerations, and EMI/EMC constraints.
• Evidence of lateral thinking and creative solutions. Bonus for design patents, open-source contributions, or recognition for innovation.
• Strong documentation skills, including creating interface control documents (ICDs), system diagrams, schematics, and internal technical documentation.

• Comprehensive Medical (ButterflyMX covers 90% of the cost), Dental, and Vision plans (ButterflyMX covers 100% of the cost) starting day 1
• 401(k) plan with a match
• 13 paid holidays, 25 PTO days
• Paid Family Leave
• Employee Assistance Program
• Quarterly self-care stipends
• Access to optional benefits including pre-tax flexible healthcare spending accounts (FSA and HSA), Dependent Care FSA, and Commuter Benefits, as well as optional Supplemental Life, AD&D, Hospital Indemnity, Disability, Legal, Accident, Critical Illness, Pet, and Personal Liability Insurance
• And more!

ButterflyMX is an equal opportunity employer and we value diversity at our company. We do not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, color, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, age, marital status, veteran status, or disability status. You must have the authorization to work in the US to become an employee. We strive to create an accessible and inclusive experience for all candidates and employees. If you need reasonable accommodations during the application or the recruiting process, please let our recruiting team know.