Staff Applications Hardware Engineer

Ambiq; Austin (TX); On-site; USD 120,000 - 180,000; Full time

Job summary

Ambiq in Austin is seeking a Staff Applications Hardware Engineer to lead development of evaluation hardware for SoCs. You will collaborate with software, design, and field engineering teams to deliver low-friction hardware solutions for power-efficient ASICs in wearable and IoT products.

The role requires hands-on PCB design, debugging on ARM platforms, and strong lab skills with oscilloscopes and logic analyzers.

Qualifications

• MS in ECE with 6+ years of relevant experience.
• Experience with hardware architecture design, PCB bring-up, and testing.
• Hands-on lab experience with test equipment (oscilloscopes, logic analyzers).
• Experience debugging ARM-based platforms and MCU peripherals.

Responsibilities

• PCB hardware architecture, design, development, and testing.
• Collaborate with internal engineering and validation teams to analyze and debug complex system-level issues.
• Conduct customer hardware design reviews and bridge communication between field and engineering teams.
• Assist with embedded software drivers, board support packages, and testing.
• Develop manufacturing test procedures and hardware for board builds overseas.
• Create application notes and hardware design guidelines.
• Assist customers with Ambiq SDK and hardware platforms.

Skills

Hardware debugging

Power design

Lab instrumentation

ARM-based debugging

Education

MS in ECE

BS in ECE

Tools

Altium Designer

Cadence

Oscilloscope

Logic Analyzer

Job description

Company Overview

Ambiq is on a mission to enable intelligence everywhere — powering the AI edge revolution with the world's lowest-power semiconductor solutions. Built on our proprietary sub- and near-threshold technology, our chips deliver multi-fold improvements in energy efficiency without costly process scaling. Since 2010, we've shipped over 300 million units to customers building smarter wearables, medical devices, IoT products, and AI-powered edge applications. Our cross-functional teams span design, research, development, production, marketing, sales, and operations across Austin, Hsinchu, Shanghai, Shenzhen, and Singapore. We move fast, tackle hard problems, and create space for people to grow through complex, meaningful work that shapes the future of technology. We're looking for self-motivated, creative problem-solvers who are eager to push technological limits and make a real impact in energy efficiency. At Ambiq, we live by five values: Innovate. Collaborate. Focus. Learn. Achieve. If that's you, join us — the intelligence everywhere revolution starts here. This role will be on-site 5 days a week in NW Austin.

Scope

As the Staff Applications Hardware Engineer at Ambiq, you will drive the development of both internal and customer facing evaluation hardware. This role will work with our software development team, our design engineering team, and our field engineering team to satisfy internal and customer needs for low friction solutions to evaluate our SoC performance and power. The successful candidate should have strong experience with PCB development for battery operated consumer electronics devices. Experience with wearable devices is a definite plus. The candidate must have experience with developing and debugging on ARM-based platforms and should have experience with low-power designs. The person in this role will involve debugging device level issues on our SoCs, supporting our field engineers for customer issues with their components and boards, and supporting customer facing documentation such as Application Notes and Hardware Design Guidelines.

Responsibilities

• PCB hardware architecture, design, development, and testing
• Collaborate with internal engineering and validation teams to analyze and debug complex system level issues and develop solutions
• Conduct customer hardware design reviews, help debug customer hardware issues, bridge the communication between field and engineering teams, and manage issue status tracking.
• Assist with the design, debug, and testing of embedded microcontroller software drivers, algorithms, application code, board support packages, automated scripts, and design test cases to provide the required functionality to end customers
• Develop manufacturing test procedures and hardware for board builds overseas
• Create application notes, knowledgebase articles, and hardware design guidelines
• Assist customers with the use of Ambiq SDK and hardware platforms

Qualifications

• MS in ECE and 6+ years of experience or BS ECE with 8+ years of experience
• Experience with hardware architecture design, component placement, layout, manufacturing test, system bring-up and testing.
• Experience designing PCB schematics and layout using Altium Designer, Cadence, or similar PCB design software
• Experience with MCU peripherals including SPI, I2C, UART, ADC, MIPI, USB, I2S and PDM..
• Experience with controlled impedance and high-speed interface PCB layout
• Experience working hands-on in the lab and using test equipment such as oscilloscopes and logic analyzers
• Excellent problem-solving skills dealing with complex system level issues related to HW/SW debug
• Experience with at least one MCU IDE from ARM, Keil, IAR, Eclipse or other is a plus

Must be currently authorized to work in the United States for any employer. We do not sponsor or take over sponsorship of employment visas (now or in the future) for this role.