Senior Electrical Engineer, Embedded Hardware

Job description

**The Mission** GRAM is a self-replication company creating machine labor for the physical economy. Our first research frontier is self-preservation: the base case of physical self-replication. We are building a new class of machines called insectoids that can survive, coordinate, and recover without humans. We believe scalable machine labor requires more than single-agent task generality or machines shaped in our image. ## About the role You will own the low-voltage electrical architecture and embedded hardware connecting sensing, computation, communications, and control. The work spans electrical integration of sensors and compute, mixed-signal interfaces, network physical layers, custom interface and controller boards, connectors, harness drawings, grounding, shielding, electromagnetic compatibility, and board bring-up under real switching, vibration, and configuration changes. Success means a released electrical system with measured signal integrity, timing, compatibility, and fault behavior across representative loads, vibration, environmental exposure, and configuration changes. ## What you will do - Translate sensing, compute, communications, calibration, diagnostic, environmental, and fault requirements into electrical architectures, interface specifications, signal budgets, and verification plans. - Define and verify electrical interfaces for cameras, inertial sensors, encoders, force or torque sensors, ranging sensors, embedded compute, timing devices, and communication components against measured system requirements. - Design and release mixed-signal, digital, sensor-interface, communication, power-sequencing, and controller-support circuitry with controlled schematics, PCB layouts, bills of material, and revision history. - Own connector selection, pinouts, cable and harness drawings, shielding, grounding, separation, derating, strain relief, service loops, continuity requirements, and electrical acceptance criteria. - Bring up boards, sensors, compute, and networks using oscilloscopes, logic and bus analyzers, spectrum or network instrumentation, programmable supplies, thermal measurements, and automated acquisition. - Characterize signal integrity, noise, clock and time-distribution behavior, communication margin, startup and brownout behavior, grounding, emissions susceptibility, and injected faults on representative assemblies. - Carry embedded hardware through design review, supplier fabrication, inspection, assembly, programming support, calibration, machine integration, manufacturing test, nonconformance closure, and verified release. ## Minimum qualifications - Bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering, computer engineering, or a related field, or equivalent practical experience. - Released and brought up embedded electronics for a robot, vehicle, instrument, industrial machine, or comparable electromechanical product using controlled schematics, PCB layouts, bills of material, and revisions. - Designed mixed-signal or digital interfaces involving sensors, embedded compute, clocks, converters, communication physical layers, protection, filtering, and power sequencing. - Produced connector pinouts and cable or harness documentation, then verified continuity, grounding, shielding, signal integrity, communication margin, or electromagnetic performance on assembled hardware. - Closed an electrical integration failure by reproducing it with bench instrumentation, identifying the physical or circuit-level root cause, releasing a correction, and demonstrating the fix through repeated test. ## Preferred experience - Robotics sensors, embedded compute, CAN, EtherCAT, Ethernet, MIPI, USB, LVDS, precision analog acquisition, or distributed time synchronization. - High-reliability harnessing, grounding and shielding, EMI or EMC testing, environmental qualification, or electrically noisy motion systems. - Hardware-in-the-loop systems, production programming and calibration, automated board test, supplier technical review, or low-volume complex electromechanical builds. ## Compensation The annual base salary range for this El Segundo position is $150,000–$190,000. An offer within this range will reflect the position's approved scope and the candidate's demonstrated role-relevant skills and experience. ## Working at GRAM This role is based on-site in El Segundo. Work moves among schematic and layout review, harness definition, bench bring-up, sensor calibration, robot integration, environmental testing, and failure teardown. **Interview Process** After submitting your application, we review your portfolio and any exceptional work you've shipped. If your application demonstrates the caliber we seek, you'll enter our interview process, which is designed for speed and substance. We aim to complete it within one week from start to finish. **Trust in the Process** GRAM expects deep trust and ownership from its people, and we begin by extending the same to candidates. We treat your information, prior work, and conversations with discretion.