The roleYou will own the complete technical architecture of a connected consumer electronics platform - from power electronics and embedded firmware through wireless communication, cloud infrastructure, and end-user applications. This is the most senior engineering hire on the team and the single point of accountability for how every layer of the system works together as one product.
We are building a multi-component hardware platform where the quality of the experience depends entirely on the integration between physical devices, local intelligence, and cloud services. The product surface is wide, the reliability bar is absolute (this is a product people live with daily), and the margin for "it mostly works" is zero. You will define the architecture that makes the system coherent, certifiable, manufacturable, and shippable.
What you'll ownSystem Architecture & Interface Contracts - Define and enforce the interfaces across every boundary in the stack: MCU firmware ↔ analog/power stages, device ↔ hub communication (wired and wireless), edge compute ↔ cloud services, cloud ↔ mobile and web applications, and third-party integration protocols.
- Own the system behaving as a unified product, not a loose federation of subsystems.
- Lead design reviews and make trade-off decisions across functions. Surface and resolve cross-domain design issues before they block progress.
Technology Selection & Build vs. Buy- Drive technology selection decisions in collaboration with product and sourcing leadership.
- Every component, module, and service choice has cost, timeline, and IP implications - you own the technical rationale and present clear recommendations, not open-ended options.
- Know when to roll custom for competitive advantage and when an off-the-shelf solution gets us to market faster without compromising the architecture.
Hardware-Software Co-Design - Work directly with electrical and mechanical engineers on board-level architecture decisions - processor selection, power distribution topology, sensor integration, and signal chain design.
- Ensure that firmware architecture supports OTA updates, graceful fault recovery, field diagnostics, and long-term maintainability from day one.
- You don't need to lay out the PCB, but you need to understand the consequences of every major hardware decision on the software that runs on top of it.
Compliance & Certification Architecture - Own the regulatory strategy across the full BOM.
- Structure the design so that UL 8750, FCC Part 15B, NEC Class 2, and any application-specific safety requirements are met by architecture - not patched in during pre-certification testing. You are experienced in regulatory submission and know what "designing for certification" actually means at the schematic level.
BOM & Supply Chain Risk Management - Maintain component-level visibility into supply chain exposure, single-source dependencies, lifecycle status, and cost.
- Flag end-of-life and allocation risks before they become production problems.
- Manage component alternates proactively. Work with manufacturing partners to ensure the BOM is producible, testable, and cost-effective at target margins - in our business, the architecture decisions you make are the gross margin.
Cloud & Application Architecture - Define the services layer - device provisioning, telemetry ingestion, remote diagnostics, OTA delivery, and any machine learning or behavioral intelligence pipelines.
- Architect the data model and APIs that serve both consumer-facing applications and any professional/installer tools required for deployment, commissioning, and support.
Security & Privacy Architecture - Design the security model end to end: device identity and authentication, encrypted communication at every hop, secure boot chain, key management, and a data architecture that meets both regulatory requirements and user trust expectations. Consumer electronics live in homes - the privacy architecture must be defensible, not just compliant.
Engineering Operations & Team Development - Champion cross-functional workflow practices and own the DevOps infrastructure - CI/CD pipelines, build systems, test automation, repository structure, and release management.
- Evaluate, onboard, and technically direct contract and full-time engineers across firmware, hardware, cloud, and application domains.
- In the near term, you are the technical continuity anchor as the team scales through specialized contractors. You set the standards, own the architecture decisions, and ensure work from distributed contributors integrates cleanly. As the company grows, you shape the permanent engineering organization.
Skills, knowledge and expertise- 8+ years of professional engineering experience spanning embedded systems, power electronics or analog hardware, IoT/connected devices, and cloud services. We need someone who has worked across layers, not someone who has spent a decade in one domain. Specifically:
- Embedded & Firmware: Deep fluency in MCU-based systems (ARM Cortex-M or equivalent), real-time firmware design, peripheral integration, and hardware abstraction layers. You think in terms of interrupt priorities and memory maps, not just application logic.
- Power & Analog Hardware: Enough working knowledge to make informed architectural decisions about power conversion topologies, thermal management, sensor front-ends, and mixed-signal design. You don't need to be the analog designer, but you need to know when one is making a decision that will constrain the system.
- IoT Security: Device identity, secure boot, TLS/DTLS, key provisioning, encrypted OTA pipelines. You understand the threat model for devices deployed in uncontrolled physical environments.
- Cloud Infrastructure: Architecture for device fleets: provisioning, telemetry, remote diagnostics, data pipelines, and fleet management (AWS IoT, Azure IoT, or equivalent). You've dealt with the realities of millions of state transitions from devices that go offline unpredictably.
- Regulatory Certification: Hands-on experience taking a hardware product through UL, FCC, CE, or international equivalents. You know the difference between a design that passes and a design that was built to pass.
- Early-stage company experience: You know what it means to own a technical decision when there's no committee to defer to. You've shipped hardware into production with a small team and imperfect information. You can distinguish between the architecture decisions that need to be right on day one and the ones that can be iterated.
- Cross-disciplinary communication: You will work daily with industrial designers, product managers, and business leadership who care about the end experience but speak a different technical language. The ability to translate between user-facing product intent and system-level engineering constraints is not optional - it's the daily work.
Preferred Qualifications and Strong Signals- Experience in consumer electronics where industrial design quality, fit-and-finish, and reliability are non-negotiable
- Background with sensor fusion architectures (radar, ToF, IMU, environmental)
- Familiarity with Matter, Thread, Zigbee, Z-Wave, or other smart home interoperability standards
- LED drive electronics, motor control, or other application-specific power electronics experience
- Manufacturing partnerships and DFM/DFT sensibility - you understand what happens when a design meets a production line
- Experience with ML at the edge: model optimization, inference on constrained hardware, behavioral pattern recognition
- Track record managing cost targets alongside technical performance - not just building it right, but building it at the right cost
CompensationThe pay range for this role is: 180,000 - 200,000 USD per year 
