Founding Electrical Engineer

Instance Labs is building an autonomous machine that transforms ideas into finished and tested circuit boards. The founding electrical engineer will own electrical architecture across custom electronics, sensing, actuation, measurement, motion control, firmware, software, and system debugging. This is an on-site San Francisco role with long hours and six-day workweeks typical.

Responsibilities

• Design, prototype, bring up, and debug custom circuit boards for sensing, actuation, measurement, and control.
• Build high-accuracy test fixtures, harnesses, and instrumentation.
• Develop electrical systems for precision autonomous machines.
• Debug failures across electronics, firmware, software, and mechanical systems.
• Build an agentic harness for the PCB fabrication machine.
• Own subsystems from circuit schematics, system architecture, or test plans through working implementations.

Requirements

• Senior-level electrical engineering experience with deep knowledge of circuits, signals, and failure modes.
• Personal experience designing, bringing up, and debugging circuit boards.
• Track record at a company that ships real hardware, such as a strong robotics, defense, aerospace, or production hardware company.
• Hands-on experience with oscilloscopes, logic analyzers, power supplies, signal generators, data acquisition systems, and custom test fixtures.
• Mechanical and systems intuition involving motors, sensors, heat, vibration, tolerances, grounding, noise, and packaging.
• Ability to write firmware or software for controlling, testing, and debugging hardware.
• Degree in electrical engineering, computer science, mechanical engineering, or physics from a top program, or equivalent intensive work experience.
• Ability to work on-site in San Francisco every day and accommodate a demanding six-day workweek.