Senior Electrical Hardware Engineer for Robotics & AI

Robotics and AI Institute; Cambridge (MA); On-site; USD 126,000 - 358,000; Full time

Job summary

The Robotics and AI Institute in Cambridge, MA, is seeking a senior electrical engineer to own robot electrical subsystems from concept through deployment. You will work with mechanical, embedded software, controls, and research teams to bring hardware to life and contribute to research.

Responsibilities include design, schematic capture, PCB layout, bring-up, testing, and documenting interfaces. You will lead design reviews, collaborate across disciplines, and help define trade-offs between

Qualifications

• BS in Electrical Engineering or a related field.
• 5+ years of relevant professional experience developing electrical hardware.
• Strong electrical fundamentals and ownership of custom electronics through design, layout, fabrication, bring-up, validation, and documentation.
• Proficiency with electronic design tools such as Altium Designer, Cadence, or KiCad.
• Strong electromechanical debugging skills with oscilloscopes, power supplies, and lab instrumentation.
• Experience in analog/mixed‑signal design, power electronics, sensing, embedded systems, or dense robot electronics.
• Ability to collaborate across hardware and software, communicate trade-offs, and document designs and validation results.
• Comfort using AI tools to support technical research, documentation, and routine tasks, with judgment about outputs and confidentiality.

Responsibilities

• Own the design and delivery of robot electrical subsystems from requirements through schematic capture, PCB layout, fabrication, bring-up, and deployment.
• Integrate power, sensing, actuation, computation, and communications hardware within mechanical constraints.
• Develop and debug microcontroller firmware for board bring-up and sensor interfaces with embedded software teams.
• Plan and execute bench and on-robot testing, validate high-risk design choices, and troubleshoot electronics, firmware, cabling, and connected systems.
• Define interfaces across teams, resolve integration issues, and trade off performance, complexity, reliability, and development time.
• Document designs, interfaces, test results, and bring-up procedures for others to build and maintain hardware.
• Lead design reviews for subsystems, coordinate work across disciplines, and improve engineering practices for rapid, reliable hardware development.

Skills

Electrical design fundamentals

Hardware ownership

Schematic capture

Oscilloscope experience

Embedded systems

Team collaboration

AI tooling awareness

Education

BS in Electrical Engineering or related field

Tools

Altium Designer

Cadence

KiCad

Schematic capture tools

Job description

The Robotics and AI Institute in Cambridge, MA, is seeking a senior electrical engineer to own robot electrical subsystems from concept through deployment. You will work with mechanical, embedded software, controls, and research teams to bring hardware to life and contribute to research.

Responsibilities include design, schematic capture, PCB layout, bring-up, testing, and documenting interfaces. You will lead design reviews, collaborate across disciplines, and help define trade-offs between