Boston Dynamics is looking for a Distinguished Hardware Development Engineer to join our Atlas Humanoid Team.
The Distinguished Hardware Development Engineer serves as an overall robot architect for the Atlas physical platform. In this role, you will lead cross-functional integration across actuation, structures, compute, power, sensing, and thermal teams, maintain system budgets and architectural baselines, and drive experiment design to validate system performance. As a principal individual contributor, you will resolve high-impact technical trade-offs, influence technical direction across the organization, mentor engineers across disciplines, and collaborate on future-generation Atlas architectures.
Boston Dynamics is a world leader in mobile robots, tackling some of the toughest robotics challenges. For years, our awe-inspiring viral videos on YouTube have shown the world what remarkably capable robots can do. Now we are quickly becoming a recognized leader in automation solutions for industrial applications and warehouse logistics.
How you will make an impact:
- Lead the development of the existing Atlas physical architecture, including the robot-level configuration, module partitioning, and the interfaces between actuation, structures, compute, power, sensing, and thermal subsystems, and guide how it evolves across design iterations.
- Maintain and refine robot-level hardware requirements and the allocation of mass, power, thermal, volume, cost, and reliability budgets to module teams as product and behavior needs evolve.
- Work with module teams as their designs mature to optimize the interactions across module interfaces, resolving conflicts in fit, load paths, power, thermal, signal, and serviceability.
- Maintain the architectural baseline and interface definitions; manage robot-level CAD database and associated change control as the design evolves through prototypes, validation builds, and production.
- Lead system-level trade studies and architectural decisions across mechanical, electrical, embedded, and manufacturing domains, balancing performance, complexity, cost, and manufacturability.
- Design and drive experiments and analyses that quantify how well the hardware meets product needs; define the metrics that characterize hardware performance and turn the results into architectural and design decisions.
- Serve as an advisor to the systems engineering team on verification and validation, helping ensure plans and tests are appropriate: that they cover the right risks, reflect real product needs, and produce results that inform architectural decisions.
- Partner with software, compute, controls, and behavior engineers to translate robot capabilities and constraints into hardware requirements (and vice-versa), and to resolve hardware/software interface decisions.
- Lead system-level architecture reviews and the design reviews where module designs integrate into the robot-level baseline; identify and drive resolution of cross-module integration risks.
- Champion design for manufacturing and assembly (DFM/DFA) of the top-level robot assembly, working with manufacturing, sourcing, and quality teams so the architecture can be built, serviced, and scaled efficiently.
- Participate in system-level risk mitigation, including FMEA, safety analysis, and reliability strategies (e.g., HALT).
- Mentor and coach engineers across disciplines in systems thinking, architecture, and technical decision-making.
What You Bring:
Core Competencies
- Execution: Drives complex, cross-disciplinary hardware development to successful outcomes. Uses experiments and data to make and defend architectural decisions, anticipates integration risks, and holds teams to system-level commitments under tight schedules and shifting constraints.
- Collaboration: Builds trusted partnerships across mechanical, electrical, software, compute, behavior, systems engineering, manufacturing, and product teams. Influences without direct authority, advises on test strategy, and communicates architectural intent clearly to engineers and leadership.
- Innovation: Challenges conventional approaches to robot architecture. Learns quickly from experiments and iteration, and synthesizes test results, technology trends, and product needs into scalable, future-ready designs.
- Adaptability: Navigates ambiguity and evolving requirements with sound judgment. Maintains architectural coherence as the design matures and as the product, technology, and organization change.
Core Knowledge & Abilities
- Broad expertise across several related disciplines (mechanical, electrical, actuation, thermal, embedded, and controls) with the depth to evaluate trade-offs and challenge subsystem designs.
- Expert-level systems engineering practice: requirements decomposition and traceability, interface control, budget allocation, trade studies, and verification and validation planning.
- Experience designing experiments and test campaigns for electromechanical systems, defining performance metrics, and drawing sound engineering conclusions from test and field data.
- Deep understanding of robotics-specific challenges such as dynamic loads, power and thermal management, sensing and compute integration, environmental robustness, and system safety.
- Experience with hazard and risk analysis (FMEA, FMECA, or FTA) and with regulatory and safety frameworks relevant to robotics.
- Demonstrated success taking a complex electromechanical product from concept through prototyping, validation, and high-volume production, including design-for-manufacture and design-for-assembly considerations.
- Proficiency with system-level modeling and architectural documentation (e.g., MBSE, SysML, or equivalent tools) and with CAD and analysis tools sufficient to review designs.
- Independent judgment on significant, ambiguous problems; ability to resolve conflicting technical priorities with data.
- Strong written and verbal communication, with the ability to persuade diverse stakeholders and convey complex architecture to engineers and executives.
- Strong mentorship skills, fostering technical growth in engineers across disciplines.
Expected Experience:
- Bachelor's degree in Mechanical Engineering, Electrical Engineering, Robotics, Mechatronics, or a related technical discipline. Master's or PhD preferred.
- Typically requires a minimum of 12 years of related experience with a Bachelor's degree; or 8 years with a Master's degree; or a PhD with 5 years of experience; or equivalent experience.
- Proven track record of technical leadership in developing and maturing an existing complex robotic or electromechanical product architecture, including interface optimization across module teams and driving design changes from test results.
- Experience contributing to clean-sheet product architecture is a plus.
- Recognized internally as a subject matter expert in robot or complex product architecture.
- Experience with dynamic or legged robots, humanoids, or other high-DOF platforms is a plus.
We are interested in every qualified candidate who is eligible to work in the United States. However, we are not able to sponsor visas for this position.
The salary range for this position will be clearly stated in the job posting as required by Massachusetts law. The base pay range for this position is between $230,000 - $307,000. Base pay will depend on multiple individualized factors including, but not limited to internal equity, job related knowledge, skills and experience. This range represents a good faith estimate of compensation at the time of posting.
Boston Dynamics will never ask you to divulge your personal financial or account information as part of its recruiting process.
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