Staff Systems Engineer

VoltForce; Oakland (CA); On-site; USD 170,000 - 230,000; Full time

Job summary

VoltForce is seeking a Staff Systems Engineer to define, integrate, and validate its sensing platform for deployment in advanced manufacturing environments. As an early team member, you will shape system-level behavior across hardware, software, and experiments, building a scalable technical foundation.

You will document experiments, designs, interfaces, and decisions, ensuring clarity and traceability while staying hands-on with analysis, validation, and cross-functional collaboration.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in Engineering or Physics required.
• 7+ years of industry experience; MS 5+; PhD 3+ years hands-on systems experience.
• Experience in early-stage or ambiguous R&D environments.
• Proficiency in data analysis and experimentation to guide system decisions.
• Strong documentation and communication skills across audiences.
• Ability to work across mechanical, electrical, software and experimental domains.

Responsibilities

• Define and own system-level architecture, integration, and validation of the sensing platform.
• Guide system-level decisions through experimentation, data analysis, and cross-disciplinary evaluation.
• Lead investigation and resolution of complex system performance issues through structured experimentation and analysis.
• Establish and evolve documentation for experiments, designs, interfaces, and decisions.
• Ensure technical documentation is clear, consistent, and traceable, integrated with hands-on engineering.
• Collaborate with cross-functional teams to guide system integration and resolve cross-disciplinary issues.
• Support on-site installation, validation, and system upgrades at customer sites as needed.
• Domestic and international travel of approximately 10–15 percent is expected.

Skills

Systems engineering

Data analysis

Experimentation

Documentation practices

Communication

Python

MATLAB

C

LabVIEW

Education

B.S. in Engineering or Physics

M.S. in Engineering or Physics

Ph.D. with hands-on systems experience

Tools

Python

MATLAB

C

LabVIEW

Job description

Confidential client. Search led by VoltForce.

Location: San Francisco Bay Area (on-site)

Job Type: Full-time

About The Company

VoltForce is working with an early-stage materials‑inspection company on the search for a Staff Systems Engineer. Our client helps manufacturers make better, safer, and more reliable micro- and nano-scale materials, the building blocks of critical sectors like energy storage, semiconductors, aerospace, and power systems. As demand surges and production grows more complex and faster, small undetected variations during manufacturing lead to waste, lower performance, higher cost, and safety risk, leaving manufacturers with little visibility into the quality of what they produce.

The company’s platform changes that. It non‑destructively probes materials during production, pairing a novel sensing approach with physics‑informed machine learning to capture real‑time signals that conventional measurement techniques cannot access. Those signals give manufacturers rare visibility into how materials behave as they are made.

The company turns that hidden data into actionable intelligence, helping manufacturers reduce variability and increase yield and performance. The platform can run as a standalone tool or integrate directly into production lines, it is already in early deployment with leading global manufacturers, and the first commercial product is on the way.

Role Overview

Our client is seeking a Staff Systems Engineer to define, integrate, and validate the company’s sensing platform for deployment into advanced manufacturing environments. As an early member of the team, you will play a key role in shaping system‑level behavior and ensuring technical coherence across hardware, software, and experimental domains, helping establish a strong and scalable technical foundation for the company.

This role carries responsibility both for system‑level technical ownership and for shaping how technical work is documented across the organization. You will define and evolve the structure used to document experiments, system designs, interfaces, and technical decisions, ensuring clarity, consistency, and traceability as the company grows. These documentation practices are expected to be tightly coupled to hands‑on engineering work, including experimentation, data analysis, and system validation.

The ideal candidate applies sound systems engineering judgment to complex, cross‑disciplinary problems and is comfortable operating in areas of ambiguity. You will drive system‑level trade studies, guide experimental strategy, and resolve non‑trivial integration and performance issues, while remaining deeply engaged in day‑to‑day technical execution. This role offers an opportunity to operate at a high level of technical impact in a collaborative engineering environment.

What You'll Do

• Define and own system‑level architecture, integration, and validation of the company’s sensing platform
• Guide system‑level technical decisions through experimentation, data analysis, and cross‑disciplinary evaluation
• Lead investigation and resolution of complex system performance issues through structured experimentation, data analysis, and root cause analysis
• Establish and evolve the structure used to document experiments, system designs, interfaces, and technical decisions across the organization
• Ensure technical documentation is clear, consistent, and traceable, and tightly integrated with hands‑on engineering and validation activities
• Work closely with cross‑functional engineering teams to guide system integration and resolve non‑trivial cross‑disciplinary issues
• Incorporate customer and application feedback into system‑level design evolution and validation strategy
• Support on‑site installation, validation, and system upgrade activities at customer sites as needed
• Domestic and international travel of approximately 10 to 15 percent is expected

What We're Looking For

• B.S. in Engineering or Physics with 7+ years of relevant industry experience, M.S. with 5+ years, or Ph.D. with 3+ years of hands‑on systems experience
• Experience developing automated metrology, inspection, or diagnostic systems across system definition, integration, validation, deployment, and customer support
• Experience working in early‑stage or ambiguous R&D environments, using experimentation and data analysis to evaluate concepts and guide system‑level decisions
• Proficiency with tools such as Python, MATLAB, C, LabVIEW, or similar for data analysis, modeling, and evaluation of system performance
• Extensive hands‑on experience developing, integrating, and validating prototypes, subsystems, and complete systems
• Experience working across mechanical, electrical, software, and experimental domains to resolve complex integration and performance issues
• Demonstrated ability to guide technical direction through experimentation, data‑driven analysis, and cross‑disciplinary evaluation
• Experience establishing or evolving technical documentation practices, ensuring clarity, consistency, and traceability of experimental results and system decisions
• Strong written and verbal communication skills, particularly in documenting complex technical work clearly for diverse audiences

Nice to Have

• Experience with manufacturing metrology equipment and sensors used for characterization or fabrication of advanced materials
• Experience with requirements and test management tools (e.g., Jama or similar) and data analysis software such as JMP
• Experience with early‑stage R&D and/or new product introduction (NPI) in complex technical systems
• Exposure to high‑precision, high‑throughput industrial systems for material handling, metrology, or process automation
• Prior work or research experience in key industrial markets such as batteries, semiconductors, power generation, energy, or electronics
• Familiarity with high‑voltage devices and novel sensing hardware
• Experience with capital equipment designed for integration into manufacturing environments, particularly roll‑to‑roll and piece‑to‑piece processes