Senior Systems Engineer
Rapta•Portland, OR
•Onsite
About The Position
We're seeking a Systems Engineer to help build Rapta's Systems Engineering practice. You will work directly with the CTO to own the full hardware integration stack — from industrial robotics, real-time motion control and connected tools through sensor and peripheral interfaces.
Requirements
- 10+ years of professional systems engineering experience in industrial or manufacturing environments
- Hands-on expertise in hardware/software co-design , motion control, and industrial automation
- Strong background in requirements engineering, interface definition, and integration testing
- Comfortable in a factory, a machine shop, and a terminal window — often in the same day
- Expert-level experience with industrial motion control systems — Modbus RTU/TCP, servo/stepper stage integration, motion controllers
- Experienced writing scalable PLC and industrial control software (Siemens S7 1200 / Rockwell Control Logix)
- Deep experience with industrial hardware integration across GigE, USB3, RS-232/485, CAN, OPC-UA, and similar protocols
- Experience designing and qualifying sensor and peripheral interface systems for industrial deployment environments
- Proficiency in Linux system administration, device driver configuration, and hardware bring-up
- Infrastructure-as-code experience: Ansible or equivalent for repeatable, scriptable system provisioning
- Experience defining and executing systems integration test plans and failure analysis
Nice To Haves
- Experience deploying systems in DOD, defense industrial base, or CMMC -regulated environments
- Knowledge of manufacturing quality standards ( ISO, Six Sigma, IPC )
- Background in machine vision hardware — optics, lighting design, calibration, and image acquisition
- Familiarity with edge computing constraints — thermal, power, vibration, and air-gapped network environments
- Exposure to AI/ML inference on edge hardware (NVIDIA CUDA runtime, Jetson, RTX-class compute)
Responsibilities
- Help establish Rapta's Systems Engineering practice — contribute to standards, processes, and team structure as the discipline grows
- Design, architect, and integrate industrial hardware systems including edge compute platforms, real time motion control stages, and sensor peripherals
- Write and maintain PLC and industrial control software for motion and automation systems
- Develop hardware-software integration layers across industrial communication protocols (Modbus, OPC-UA, RS-485, GigE, USB3)
- Define and own hardware interface specifications for sensing and projection peripherals deployed at customer facilities
- Design and execute systems integration and qualification testing from component level through full-stack validation
- Maintain rigorous systems engineering documentation: requirements, ICDs, test plans, and deployment runbooks
- Collaborate with software teams to define clean hardware abstraction boundaries and service contracts
Benefits
- Ground-floor opportunity to build and own a systems engineering discipline at a high-growth AI company
- Meaningful early-stage equity at a late seed-stage company — this is a foundational role
- Competitive compensation and benefits package
- Direct access to the CTO and founders; your decisions shape the company's technical trajectory
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What This Job Offers
Job Type
Full-time
Career Level
Senior
Education Level
No Education Listed
