Senior Electrical Engineer

Socket.dev; New York (NY); On-site; USD 150,000 - 225,000; Full time

Job summary

Ultra in New York City is seeking a Senior Electrical Engineer to own the reliability, manufacturability, and cost of Ultra's electronics stack as we scale from 50 to 1000+ robots. You will be involved at every step to ensure generations are scalable and supportable as we deploy them nationwide.

Work with contract manufacturers and vendors to drive BOM cost reductions without sacrificing reliability, lead rapid design loops, and decide make-vs-buy for electronics and subsystems.

Qualifications

• Shipping robotics hardware from prototype to production.
• Debugging intermittent faults and EMI/EMC issues at scale.
• Design for manufacturability and test (DFM/DFT) for electronics in robotics.
• Experience with contract manufacturers and vendor relations.
• Willingness to travel to customer and supplier sites.

Responsibilities

• Make Ultra's electronics stack bulletproof for adverse environments as we scale from 50 to 1000+ deployed units.
• Debug and fix intermittent digital communications issues across the fleet.
• Lead design and component selection for multi-subsystem improvements to the electronics stack.
• Collaborate with contract manufacturers and vendors for 1000+ scale production.
• Realize systematic BOM cost reductions without compromising reliability.
• Lead rapid design loops to ship improvements – prototype, validate, and refine.
• Make build-vs-buy decisions for electronics and subsystems.

Skills

Schematic & PCB design

Power electronics

CAN, Ethernet, USB

DFM/DFT

Cost engineering

Environmental robustness

Vendor management

Fleet-level debugging

Tools

CAN

Ethernet

USB

Oscilloscopes

Logic analyzers

Protocol analyzers

PCBA QA

Job description

About Ultra

Ultra builds industrial AI robots that are working in the real world today. Our robots automate mission-critical warehouse labor end-to-end, starting with e-commerce order packaging. We deploy fast, learn from real production data, and iterate aggressively. We already have a quickly growing number of revenue-generating robots operating in U.S. warehouses, and are now scaling towards thousands of deployments over the next few years. Our mission is simple: build the world's most useful and deployable robot.

WARNING: Robotics is not for the faint of heart. There are no silver bullets here. It is tiresome, unglamorous, and at times brutal work. The only way out is through, and the only way through is treacherous and unknown. Success will require teamwork - so we are building a world-class team to tackle some of the most exciting problems out there. We hope you join us.

Overview

We're seeking a Senior Electrical Engineer to join our NYC-based team and own the reliability, manufacturability, and cost of Ultra's electronics stack as we scale our fleet from 50 to 1000+ robots. This is a foundational role: as we build beyond OP1 to future robot models, you'll be involved at every step of the process to make each generation of our robot scalable and supportable as we deploy them around the country. We are an early stage company moving very fast in a rapidly growing space, and welcome people from any background as long as you're excited to join our mission, drive immediate impact, and create a future where automation is accessible to all.

What You'll Do

• Make Ultra's electronics stack bulletproof for every adverse customer environment - heat, dust, vibration, electrical noise, and everything else real warehouses throw at our robots - as we scale from 50 to 1000+ deployed units.
• Debug and fix intermittent digital communications errors across the fleet, driving toward zero errors per day at fleet scale.
• Lead design and component selection for multi-subsystem improvements to Ultra's electronics stack for OP1 and beyond - including motors, power supplies, communications hardware, cameras, and more.
• Work with contract manufacturers and vendors to get robots manufactured at 1000+ scale, including cabling, overmolded connectors, PCBA QA, and more.
• Realize systematic cost reductions to hit aggressive BOM cost targets without compromising reliability.
• Lead rapid design loops to ship improvements fast - prototype, validate on the robots in the lab and in the field, learn, and refine.
• Make build-vs-buy decisions for electronics and subsystems, selecting off-the-shelf components when smart and developing custom designs when it creates strategic advantage.

Who You Are

• You are a senior electrical engineer with multiple years of experience shipping robotic or electromechanical systems into production - you've taken hardware from prototype through volume manufacturing and lived with the consequences of your design decisions in the field.
• You have a portfolio of robust electronics designs and a track record of hunting down the hardest classes of bugs: intermittent faults, signal integrity issues, EMI/EMC problems, and failures that only appear at scale.
• You enjoy problem solving, almost to a fault.
• You think in fleets, not units. You know that a failure mode affecting 0.1% of robots is a daily fire at 1000+ deployments, and you design accordingly.
• You thrive in a high-trust, high-autonomy environment. You don't need to be micromanaged because you are used to working backwards from customer needs and focusing on the most valuable work.
• You are hungry for impact and personal growth. Your dream job is an opportunity to work hard with a team of like-minded engineers building the future of robotics.

Experience and Skills

• The full electrical hardware stack: Schematic capture, PCB design, and design for manufacturing and test (DFM/DFT)
• Power electronics - power supplies, distribution, motor drives, and protection circuits
• Digital communications buses and protocols common in robotics (most importantly CAN, Ethernet, and USB), including debugging with oscilloscopes, logic analyzers, and protocol analyzers
• Sourcing, qualifying, and testing components such as motors, power supplies, cameras, and communications hardware
• Electrical assembly and rework - from soldering to cable harness design to root-causing failures on the bench and in the field
• Manufacturing at scale: experience working with contract manufacturers and vendors on cabling, overmolded connectors, PCBA quality assurance, and production test - you know how to write specs and quality requirements that CMs can actually execute against.
• Cost engineering: demonstrated ability to drive BOM cost reductions through component selection, design consolidation, and vendor negotiation without sacrificing reliability.
• Environmental robustness: designing electronics that survive adverse environments - thermal extremes, dust, vibration, ESD, and electrical noise.
• Communication: good with customers and vendors alike. You know how to build relationships across the board and maintain them while helping us achieve our goals.
• Great at digging deep on a problem, pulling all of your knowledge and connections together to help us build the most reliable robots we can.
• Comfortable with travel to customer and supplier sites.

Bonus Qualifications

We are a highly multidisciplinary team, and engineers who can flex beyond their core discipline are especially valuable here. Any of the following make you stand out:

• Mechatronics fluency: comfort working across the mechanical-electrical boundary - you can reason about how enclosures, mounting, thermal paths, strain relief, and tolerances affect your electronics, and collaborate fluently with mechanical engineers on integrated designs.
• Rapid prototyping: hands-on skills with 3D printing, basic CAD, machine tools, and quick-turn fabrication - you can mock up a bracket, fixture, or test rig yourself to validate an electrical design without waiting on another team.
• Experience scaling a hardware product from tens to thousands of units in the field.
• Firmware or embedded software experience - comfortable reading and writing code to instrument, debug, and validate your hardware.
• Experience with fleet-level telemetry, diagnostics, and failure analysis for deployed hardware.
• EMC/EMI compliance and safety certification experience (e.g., UL, CE, FCC).
• Familiarity with motor control electronics, encoders, and servo systems.
• Experience designing test fixtures and automated test equipment for validating electronics in development and production.
• Experience with overseas or domestic contract manufacturing ramps, including NPI, pilot builds, and production release.

Expected Compensation

$150,000 - $225,000/annual salary + equity + benefits

This compensation range may be inclusive of several career levels at Ultra and will be narrowed during the interview process based on the candidate’s experience and qualifications. Adjustments outside of this range may be considered for candidates whose qualifications significantly differ from those outlined in the job description.

Equal Employment Opportunity Statement

We are an Equal Opportunity Employer. We do not discriminate based on race, religion, color, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, age, marital status, veteran status, or disability status. We are committed to creating a diverse and inclusive environment and encourage applicants from all backgrounds to apply.