EE Design & Test Engineer

Apple • San Diego, CA

3d

About The Position

The Motion Sensing Hardware team at Apple develops sophisticated test systems and instrumentation that support cutting-edge sensing technologies in consumer products. This role offers an opportunity to join a team that designs, builds, and validates the custom hardware infrastructure used to characterize inertial, pressure, and magnetic sensors throughout the product development lifecycle. We invite motivated and innovative electrical engineers to help create the test instrumentation that gives our team unmatched insight into sensor performance. As a Module Test Instrumentation & Automation Engineer, you will be responsible for designing the electronic hardware and supporting software that underpin the team’s sensor characterization capability. Your work will span schematic design, PCB layout oversight, and the software layers that connect custom test hardware to the team’s broader automation infrastructure. You will bring together deep electrical engineering fundamentals and strong software development skills to deliver instrumentation that is precise, reliable, and tightly integrated with the team’s characterization workflows.

This position requires a versatile electrical engineer with hands-on experience designing analog and mixed signal circuits, overseeing PCB layout for precision measurement applications, and writing software to connect custom test hardware to the team’s automation and data collection pipelines. You will own the design of sensor evaluation boards and test fixtures from schematic through bring-up, ensuring that hardware choices — signal conditioning topology, power architecture, interface selection — directly serve the accuracy and throughput demands of sensor characterization. You will develop the software interfaces that expose test hardware functionality to higher-level automation tools, and work closely with firmware and embedded software engineers where dedicated firmware is required. The role demands rigorous attention to signal integrity and measurement accuracy, strong software engineering skills, and the ability to collaborate closely with characterization and data automation engineers to ensure that the hardware and software layers work together seamlessly.

Requirements

• BS and a minimum of 10 years relevant industry experience
• 5+ years of hands-on experience designing schematics and reviewing PCB layouts for analog, mixed-signal or precision measurement applications
• Proficiency with industry-standard schematic capture tools (Altium Designer, Cadence, or equivalent)
• Strong analog design fundamentals: signal conditioning, filtering, amplifier selection, noise analysis, and power supply design for precision measurement
• Familiarity with common sensor communication interfaces (I2C, SPI, UART) and ability to debug signal integrity issues at the hardware level
• Proficiency with lab instrumentation: oscilloscopes, logic analyzers, spectrum analyzers, LCR meters, and precision voltage references
• Proficiency in Python for test automation, hardware control, and data collection scripting
• Strong written and verbal English communication skills, with the ability to document hardware designs clearly and collaborate across hardware, firmware and software disciplines

Nice To Haves

• Degree in Electrical Engineering or equivalent
• Firmware development experience in C/C++ for embedded microcontrollers, including peripheral driver development, sensor communication drivers and hardware bring-up
• Experience with FPGA development using Verilog or VHDL for high-speed data capture or custom sensor interface logic
• Familiarity with MEMS sensor operation and the signal chain requirements for characterizing IMU, pressure and magnetometer devices
• Experience designing for low-noise, high-resolution measurement applications including careful attention to grounding, shielding and EMI mitigation
• Experience with DFT and DFM considerations for test hardware used in production or high volume characterization environments
• Familiarity with sensor fusion concepts and how hardware design choices influence system level accuracy
• Experience developing hardware abstraction layers or SDK-style interfaces that allow firmware to be reused across multiple hardware revisions
• Experience with version control systems and firmware CI/CD workflows for embedded software
• Familiarity with data automation frameworks and how embedded test systems interface with host-side data pipelines
• Experience with consumer electronics product development cycles, including EVT/DVT/PVT hardware bring-up phases
• Passion for precision measurement and building instrumentation that enables the team to move faster with higher confidence

Responsibilities

• Designing the electronic hardware and supporting software that underpin the team’s sensor characterization capability.
• Designing sensor evaluation boards and test fixtures from schematic through bring-up.
• Developing software interfaces that expose test hardware functionality to higher-level automation tools.
• Collaborating with firmware and embedded software engineers where dedicated firmware is required.
• Ensuring hardware choices serve the accuracy and throughput demands of sensor characterization.
• Working closely with characterization and data automation engineers to ensure hardware and software layers work together seamlessly.

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Senior