- Job title
- Electrical Engineer
- Job location
- Mountain View, CA, US
- Job description
- ## **High-Density Power Electronics, Motor Control, and Sensor Integration**
At **Proception**, we are building some of the most dexterous humanoid robotic hands in the world: **20+ actuators, dense sensing, real-time control, and power electronics packed into a compact robotic forearm**.
This role is for an electrical engineer who enjoys building hardware that lives at the edge of what is physically possible. You will design the embedded electronics behind our robotic hands, including motor control, power delivery, sensor integration, board bring-up, and real-time communication.
Your work will directly affect the dexterity, responsiveness, reliability, and manufacturability of our robotic platforms.
## **The Team**
We are a robotics team building the hardware foundation for general-purpose manipulation. We started Proception because we believe humanoid hands are one of the biggest bottlenecks to capable real-world robots.
Better robot intelligence needs better hands, better sensors, better actuation, and better embedded systems. That is what we are building.
## **What You Will Own**
### **First 30 Days**
You will:
* Understand our robotic hand architecture, actuator stack, sensing stack, and embedded electronics roadmap
* Support bring-up and debugging of existing motor control, power, and sensor boards
* Review current PCB designs for thermal, EMI, signal integrity, power distribution, and manufacturability risks
* Characterize actuator power draw, current sensing, encoder feedback, and sensor noise under real robot operation
* Work closely with mechanical and controls teams to understand packaging and performance constraints
### **First 60 Days**
You will:
* Design or revise high-density mixed-signal PCBs for compact robotic forearms and hands
* Improve power distribution, protection, monitoring, and thermal performance across actuator-dense systems
* Integrate tactile sensors, force sensors, IMUs, encoders, and other feedback devices into the embedded stack
* Develop or support firmware for motor drivers, sensor interfaces, diagnostics, and real-time communication
* Help define architecture tradeoffs between centralized control, distributed control, and sensor aggregation
### **First 90 Days**
You will:
* Own a major electrical subsystem for the next-generation Proception hand or forearm
* Bring up and validate boards on real robotic hardware
* Improve robustness of actuator, sensor, and power systems under continuous operation
* Build test procedures for manufacturing, validation, and field diagnostics
* Contribute to the long-term embedded electronics architecture for high-DOF humanoid manipulation
## **Must-Haves**
* Demonstrated ability to design, assemble, and debug **high-density mixed-signal PCBs** involving power, sensing, and control
* Strong understanding of **BLDC, servo, or actuator control systems**, including current sensing, position feedback, and motor driver integration
* Experience with **power electronics**, including switching regulators, gate drivers, protection circuits, current measurement, and thermal management
* Hands-on experience integrating sensors such as **encoders, IMUs, force sensors, tactile sensors, strain gauges, or analog front ends**
* Strong hardware debugging ability using **oscilloscopes, logic analyzers, power analyzers, thermal cameras, and bench power supplies**
## **Nice-to-Haves**
* Experience designing electronics for **robotic hands, humanoids, drones, exoskeletons, surgical robots, or compact actuator-dense systems**
* Experience with **FOC, current loops, torque control, motor calibration, or encoder alignment**
* Familiarity with **EMI/EMC mitigation, high-current PCB layout, impedance control, grounding strategy, and thermal-aware layout**
* Experience with **Altium, KiCad, OrCAD, LTspice, MATLAB, Python, or manufacturing test automation**
* Experience designing for **DFM, DFT, reliability testing, or production bring-up**
* Experience with embedded communication protocols such as **CAN, CAN-FD, EtherCAT, SPI, I2C, UART, or RS-485**
## **You Might Be a Fit If**
You like solving problems where the electrical, mechanical, thermal, firmware, and control constraints all collide.
You are comfortable debugging a board with a scope in the morning, modifying firmware in the afternoon, and discussing actuator packaging with mechanical engineers before the end of the day.
You care about building hardware that works reliably, not just schematics that look good.
## **Why Join Proception**
* Work on one of the hardest hardware problems in robotics: compact, high-DOF, sensor-rich humanoid hands
* Build electronics that directly affect real robot dexterity and manipulation performance
* Work at the intersection of power electronics, embedded systems, motor control, sensing, and intelligent robotics
* Join a YC-backed robotics company building foundational hardware for general-purpose robots
* Competitive salary, equity, and comprehensive health and dental coverage
## **Apply**
Please apply through our website for better tracking:
[**https://www.proception.ai/careers**](https://www.proception.ai/careers)
