Vehicle Integration Technician

The Keystone Distinction Group; Austin (TX); Hybrid; USD 120,000 - 185,000; Full time

Job summary

The Keystone Distinction Group seeks a Vehicle Integration Technician in Austin, TX to retrofit autonomous vehicle hardware on heavy machinery including forklifts, loaders, and diggers. You will couple electrical, mechanical, and software aspects, ensuring installations meet strict performance criteria.

We expect 4+ years of hands-on experience in automotive/robotics contexts, with a strong focus on CAN networking and ECU-level work.

Qualifications

• 4+ years of experience retrofitting kits into autonomous machines.
• Hands-on, multi-skilled builder from automotive, robotics, autonomous driving, or heavy machinery.
• ECU or low-level embedded programming experience is a big plus.

Responsibilities

• Adapt platform hardware (power, harnesses, sensors, compute, controllers) to fit each machine model.
• Build and install wiring harnesses, connectors, mounting brackets, sensors, actuators; verify through checks (continuity, voltage, CAN/J1939).
• Go to customer sites to scope retrofit needs; run installation, commissioning, debugging, and acceptance testing.
• Troubleshoot integration across electrical, mechanical, and software layers; communicate changes to platform engineering teams.
• Record build issues and lessons learned to improve Vehicle Adapter Kits.

Skills

Electrical systems

CAN bus / CAN J1939

Hands-on assembly

Troubleshooting

Education

Bachelor's Degree

Tools

CAN/J1939 diagnostics

Embedded ECU programming

Job description

TITLE: Vehicle Integration Technician

ENVIRONMENT :AI, Industrial

LOCATION :Austin, TXHybrid

COMPENSATION RANGE :$120,000.00 - $185,000.00DOQ

DEGREE REQUIREMENTS:Bachelor's Degree

CITIZENSHIP:Open to H1B, OPT transfers

TRAVEL: 25% to customer sites

EXPERIENCE LEVEL:3-8 years experience

POSITION SUMMARY:

We are building the future of intelligent load handling by making industrial machines - forklifts, wheel loaders, diggers, and more - fully autonomous with "silicon brains." The company's machine-agnostic intelligence platform lets any machine, on any site, perceive, decide, and act autonomously. One platform. Any machine. No fleet replacement.

We are looking for a Vehicle Integration Technician with 4+ years of experience retrofit kits into working autonomous machines on real industrial vehicles. We need a hands-on, multi-skilled builder from automotive, robotics, autonomous driving, or heavy machinery who can install a full hardware stack (electrical, mechanical, and CAN) on a specific machine. We plan to retrofit 200+ vehicle platforms over the next four years, including forklifts, wheel loaders, and diggers of every brand. You'll be one of the first technical hires at the new Austin location, and you'll help write the playbook for deploying autonomy in the US.

The vision: one operator managing hundreds of machines simultaneously, with productive machine-hour cost dropping by 80x - unlocking the next productivity revolution in physical work.

What will you be doing?

• Adapting our standard platform hardware (power distribution, harnesses, sensors, compute, controllers) to fit each machine model. Most of the kit already exists, and you'll engineer the last 10% that makes it fit.
• Building and installing wiring harnesses, connectors, mounting brackets, sensors, and actuators on vehicles, then bringing them up through continuity, voltage, power, and CAN/J1939 checks.
• Going to customer sites to scope what each retrofit needs, then running installation, commissioning, debugging, and acceptance testing.
• Troubleshooting integration problems across the electrical, mechanical, and software layers, and sending clear change requests back to the platform engineering teams.
• Recording build issues and lessons learned to make Vehicle Adapter Kits better and more repeatable. ECU or low-level embedded programming experience is a big plus.