Innovation Engineer

Afference•Boulder, CO

10h•Onsite

About The Position

The Innovation Engineer translates emerging research ideas into practical prototypes and feasibility demonstrations by working at the intersection of research, engineering, and product development. The role involves designing and building rapid hardware and embedded systems prototypes to test scientific hypotheses and evaluate real-world constraints such as power, latency, form factor, reliability, and manufacturability. Collaborating closely with research scientists, R&D engineers, and product teams, the Innovation Engineer integrates hardware and firmware, designs experiments, analyzes performance results, and documents findings that guide product strategy and customer pilot programs. This position requires strong cross-disciplinary technical skills in embedded systems, hardware integration, and rapid prototyping, along with the ability to navigate ambiguous challenges and deliver clear, evidence-based recommendations.

Requirements

Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering, Embedded Systems, Mechanical Engineering, or a closely related discipline.
Strong expertise in embedded systems and hardware prototyping, including embedded firmware development, hardware integration, and low-level debugging.
Solid understanding of power management and low-power embedded system design, including power budgeting and system optimization.
Ability to design and execute structured experiments to validate technical hypotheses and evaluate system performance.
Proficiency using lab instrumentation and debugging tools (e.g., oscilloscopes, logic analyzers, multimeters) to diagnose hardware and integration issues.
Strong systems thinking and cross-disciplinary troubleshooting across hardware, firmware, and system integration layers.
Ability to document technical findings and communicate results clearly to research, engineering, and product teams.
Comfort working in fast-moving R&D environments with ambiguous requirements, translating early-stage concepts into functional prototypes and feasibility insights.
Effective collaboration skills for working with research scientists, engineers, designers, and product managers.
Organizational and project coordination skills to manage multiple prototypes, experiments, and documentation tasks simultaneously.

Nice To Haves

PhD is not required but may be advantageous.

Responsibilities

Design, build, and test rapid prototypes to evaluate technical feasibility of emerging concepts and product ideas.
Select appropriate components, architectures, and integration approaches for embedded and hardware systems.
Develop test firmware, instrumentation, and logging capabilities to evaluate performance and constraints.
Integrate hardware, firmware, and mechanical elements into functional prototypes.
Evaluate prototype system tradeoffs including power usage, thermal behavior, component tolerances, and manufacturability.
Document and present technical findings and constraints to guide future design decisions.
Develop feasibility test plans and conduct experiments to demonstrate product concepts.
Produce clear documentation including experimental test plans, prototype specifications and constraints, measurement results, and recommended future directions.
Provide feasibility assessments and decision support for product and engineering leadership.
Partner with research scientists, R&D engineers, product engineering, and product management to design experiments, build and evaluate prototypes, and assess prototype constraints (e.g., power, latency, integration, manufacturability), producing feasibility assessments and technical recommendations that guide product decisions.
Work with component vendors and early customer partners to evaluate technologies, integrate prototypes, troubleshoot issues, and translate pilot insights into initial customer requirements.
Other duties as assigned.