BS in Engineering (Systems, Electrical, Mechanical, Optical, or related); MS or PhD preferred.
12+ years in systems engineering or multidisciplinary product development of complex electro-optical, opto-mechanical, or precision instrument systems.
Experience writing, managing, and flowing down system-level requirements with traceability.
Working command of verification/validation methods, measurement uncertainty, and statistical data analysis.
Hands-on experience designing and building test systems for verifying performance.
Experience leading FMEAs on complex products and facilitating cross-functional sessions.
Proven ability to communicate across disciplines, translating customer needs into technical requirements.
Responsibilities
Drive system-level requirements by translating product and customer needs into testable criteria.
Maintain traceability between system requirements and demonstrated capabilities, identifying gaps.
Allocate requirements across hardware, software, and test design with clear interfaces.
Design and build test systems to verify performance and establish clear metrics.
Identify key performance metrics that drive system capability using statistical methods.
Lead cross-functional FMEAs, ensuring technical content and risk mitigations are addressed.
Benefits
On-site work environment in Waltham, MA.
Opportunity to establish systems engineering as a discipline within the company.
Mentorship opportunities for engineers across various disciplines.
Engagement with cutting-edge opto-electro-mechanical technology.
Collaboration with a diverse team of engineers and product architects.
Full Job Description
Senior / Principal Systems Engineer
Location: Waltham, MA (On-site) Reports To: SVP, Engineering Level: Senior or Principal, determined by experience and demonstrated scope
The Role
GelSight builds complex opto-electro-mechanical metrology systems where every micron matters. We are hiring a Systems Engineer to own the thread that runs from customer and product needs to system-level requirements to proven system capability: defining what our products must do, allocating those requirements across hardware and software, and verifying through objective evidence that what we ship meets them. You will work alongside our Product Architects, hardware, gel and software engineers. At the Principal level, your scope extends across the product portfolio, and you will establish systems engineering as a discipline at GelSight.
Responsibilities
System Requirements
Drive System-Level Requirements: Translate product and customer needs into complete, testable system-level requirements for accuracy, repeatability, uncertainty, and throughput.
Link Requirements to Capability: Maintain traceability between system requirements and demonstrated system capability; quantify gaps and drive the roadmap to close them.
Allocate Requirements: Flow system-level requirements into opto-mechanical hardware, gel and software with clear interfaces and error budgets, and into test design including calibration plates, fixtures, and reference test standards.
Verification & System Capability
Own System Verification & Validation (V&V): Author verification and validation plans and acceptance criteria; gate releases on objective evidence that system requirements are met.
Design and Build Test Systems: Design and build test systems to verify system performance and create clear system performance metrics that track to overall system capability.
Link System Performance to System Capability: Identify the key system performance metrics that drive system capability; use Measurement System Analysis (MSA), uncertainty budgeting, and statistical methods to quantify system capability.
Lead FMEAs: Facilitate cross-functional system-level FMEAs as the engineering lead, in partnership with Quality: Quality owns the FMEA process, templates, and records; systems engineering owns the technical content, failure modes, risk ranking, and mitigations and ensures they drive requirements, error budgets, and test coverage.
Collaboration
Partner Across Engineering: Work with the Systems and Software Architect and give hardware, gel, software and mechanical engineers allocated requirements and acceptance criteria they can design and test against.
At the Principal Level, Additionally
Portfolio Ownership: Own system-level requirements and capability models across the product portfolio, not a single product.
Discipline Building: Establish GelSight's systems engineering practice: requirements standards, review gates, traceability tooling, and design-review rigor.
Technical Authority & Mentorship: Serve as a company-level technical authority on system performance; mentor engineers across disciplines and communicate system risk to executives in decision-ready form.
Requirements
Must-Haves
Education: BS in Engineering (Systems, Electrical, Mechanical, Optical, or related); MS or PhD preferred.
Experience: 12+ years in systems engineering or multidisciplinary product development of complex electro-optical, opto-mechanical, or precision instrument systems.
Requirements Engineering: Demonstrated experience writing, managing, and flowing down system-level requirements on shipped products, with requirement-to-verification traceability.
V&V and Metrology Literacy: Working command of verification/validation methods, measurement uncertainty, error budgets, and statistical data analysis.
Test Systems: Demonstrated ability to design and build test systems to verify system performance, hands-on experience with optical components, alignment, and test instrumentation.
FMEA: Hands-on experience leading FMEAs (system and/or design) on complex products; able to facilitate cross-functional FMEA sessions and drive mitigations to closure, partnering with Quality on process and documentation.
Communication: Proven ability to translate between customer needs, system requirements, and subsystem design language across disciplines.
Nice-to-Haves (Bonus)
Background in surface metrology, dimensional metrology, or precision measurement instruments.
Experience establishing systems engineering practices at a small or scaling company.
Experience in aerospace, defense, or other regulated precision-manufacturing industries.
Working proficiency with Model-Based Systems Engineering (MBSE) methods and tools for requirements modeling, allocation, and traceability.
For Consideration at the Principal Level
Experience: 15+ to 20+ years in systems engineering or multidisciplinary product development of complex electro-optical, opto-mechanical, or precision instrument systems, including technical leadership of multiple products from concept through shipped, verified release.
Requirements Leadership: A track record of owning system-level requirements and their flow-down on shipped products, not just contributing to them, with requirement-to-verification traceability you built or ran.
V&V and Metrology Depth: In-depth knowledge of verification/validation strategy, measurement uncertainty, error budgets, and statistical capability analysis; able to set the standard others follow.
FMEA Program Leadership: Experience establishing or running an FMEA program and training engineers in the method, beyond participating in FMEAs.
Influence & Communication: Demonstrated ability to drive technical direction across disciplines and organizational levels without direct authority, and to communicate system risk to executives in decision-ready form.
