Senior Electrical Design Engineer

Deft AI•San Francisco, CA

About The Position

This role involves owning the end-to-end electrical design of new robotic humanoid hand/end-effector designs for Deft’s next generation wheeled humanoid robot. The engineer will cooperate with and report directly to the CEO.

Requirements

Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in Electrical Engineering, Mechatronics or equivalent degree.
3+ years of experience designing mixed-signal electronics for robotic, mechatronic, or embedded systems.
Strong PCB design skills — schematic capture, multi-layer layout, and DFM review in Altium, KiCad, or equivalent.
Proficiency in embedded C/C++ firmware development targeting ARM Cortex-M microcontrollers (STM32, NXP, etc.).
Hands-on experience with motor driver design (BLDC, brushed DC, or stepper) and power electronics fundamentals.
Working knowledge of serial communication protocols (CAN bus, SPI, I²C, UART) and real-time control concepts.
Comfortable with lab bench work — soldering, rework, probing, and debugging prototypes.
Excellent communication skills and ability to work in unstructured and high-pressure environments
Understanding of how to balance development speed versus product quality
Problem solving with first principles thinking
Growth mindset: curious and hungry to grow

Nice To Haves

Prior experience designing electronics for robotic hands, grippers, or prosthetic devices.
Experience with EtherCAT or CANopen for deterministic, low-latency actuator networks.
Familiarity with battery management systems (BMS) and compact power regulation for mobile/embedded robotics.
Knowledge of EMI/EMC mitigation techniques and compliance testing.
Experience with Python or MATLAB for automated hardware testing and data analysis.

Responsibilities

Design schematics and high-density, multi-layer PCB layouts (Altium, KiCad) for motor driver boards, sensor interface boards, and power distribution systems that fit within the tight form factor of a robotic hand.
Select, integrate, and characterize sensors — encoders, force/torque sensors, tactile arrays, and temperature sensors — to enable closed-loop control of each finger joint.
Develop compact motor drive circuits for miniature BLDC or servo motors, including current sensing, protection, and thermal management.
Build and execute hardware-in-the-loop test setups — validate boards with oscilloscopes, logic analyzers, and power analyzers, and debug issues at the bench alongside the mechanical engineer.
Write and maintain basic embedded firmware (C/C++) on STM32 or similar microcontrollers for real-time motor control loops, sensor data acquisition, and communication bus interfaces (CAN, SPI, I²C).
Collaborate with mechanical engineering and firmware engineering to solve integration challenges — cable routing, connector selection, EMI shielding, thermal dissipation, firmware-hardware co-debugging, and communication protocol bring-up within a compact hand assembly.