Senior Electrical Engineer

Kovari; San Francisco (CA); On-site; USD 140,000 - 190,000; Full time

Job summary

Kovari, based in San Francisco, seeks a Senior Electrical Engineer to own electrical subsystems of our robots from concept to production. You’ll design power architecture, battery systems, and sensors, and you’ll bring up boards and harnesses for live operations.

You will work closely with embedded teams, tune motor controllers, select and integrate drives, and mentor junior engineers while collaborating with vendors to deliver robust field hardware.

Qualifications

• 5+ years of hardware design and shipping experience.
• Strong fundamentals in power electronics, motor drives, and mixed-signal design.
• Track record owning electrical subsystems end-to-end from concept through production.
• Schematic capture and PCB layout in Altium or KiCad.
• Experience with PCB bring-up, power, motor control, and embedded integration.

Responsibilities

• Own electrical architecture and subsystem design from concept through production: power distribution, battery systems and BMS, charging, protection.
• Select, integrate, and tune motor controllers and drives for performance, reliability, and manufacturability.
• Design schematics and PCBs for power, sensing, and I/O, and lead PCB bring‑up.
• Integrate sensors: cameras, IMUs, encoders, force/torque, proximity.
• Design and build wiring harnesses for reliability and serviceability.
• Work with embedded systems on firmware, CAN, EtherCAT, RS-485, and bring-up.
• Debug electrical failures on deployed robots and feed fixes back into the design.
• Manage vendors and manufacturers for PCBs, harnesses, and custom assemblies, and mentor juniors.

Skills

Power electronics

Motor drives

Mixed-signal design

Schematic capture

PCB layout

Altium

KiCad

Embedded integration

Battery systems

Harness design

Soldering / rework

Vendor management

Tools

Altium

KiCad

Job description

About Kovari

Kovari develops frontier technology to transform physical businesses. We partner with established operators to change how they run, and we build and operate businesses of our own through our subsidiaries.

We are a small team of builders, operators, and researchers. We deploy on site, alongside the businesses we serve, and iterate in the field. We have raised over $6M from leading investors.

We are based in San Francisco and work in person.

The Role

As a Senior Electrical Engineer, you will own electrical subsystems of our robots end to end, from concept through production, spanning power architecture and motor drives to sensors, harnesses, and embedded integration. You make architecture and design tradeoffs, design it, build it, bring it up, and debug it on robots running in live operations.

This is not a bench role. Your systems face real constraints: high duty cycles, continuous charging and discharging, noisy environments, and hardware that has to survive the field.

What You'll Do

• Own electrical architecture and subsystem design from concept through production: power distribution, battery systems and BMS, charging, protection

• Select, integrate, and tune motor controllers and drives, making tradeoffs across performance, reliability, and manufacturability

• Design schematics and PCBs for power, sensing, and I/O, and lead PCB bring-up

• Integrate sensors: cameras, IMUs, encoders, force/torque, proximity

• Design and build wiring harnesses for reliability, serviceability, and robust power delivery

• Work with embedded and controls on firmware, comms buses (CAN, EtherCAT, RS-485), and bring-up

• Debug electrical failures on deployed robots and drive fixes back into the design

• Manage vendors and manufacturers for PCBs, harnesses, and custom assemblies, and mentor junior engineers

What You Bring

• 5+ years of relevant industry experience designing and shipping hardware

• Strong fundamentals in power electronics, motor drives, and mixed-signal design

• Track record owning electrical subsystems from concept through production

• Schematic capture and PCB layout in Altium or KiCad

• Experience with PCB bring-up, power, motor control, and embedded integration

• Battery system experience: Li-ion packs, BMS, thermal and safety design

• Harness design: connector selection, strain relief, routing, documentation

• Hands-on skill: you solder, scope, and rework boards yourself

• Experience making architecture and design tradeoffs, mentoring junior engineers, and working with vendors and manufacturers

• A track record of hardware you've shipped and a portfolio of things you've built on your own time

• Bias toward action: prototype fast, test early, fix what breaks

Values

• Pace of learning trumps everything.

• Relentless refinement of our craft.

• Low ego, high ownership.

• All-in on the mission. We work in person, and this isn't a 9-to-5.