Embedded Hardware Engineer

Company background Swarmbotics AI is a low-cost, swarm robotics company for industry and defense.  We see a world of ubiquitous low-cost robots transforming almost all aspects of society, but we see an urgent need in the defense industry.  We focus on building swarms of robots that incorporate a low-cost BOM, an autonomous stack optimized for off the shelf components, and a global planner that enables swarm capabilities for groups of robots to accomplish sophisticated tasks. Our first product is a defense application building Unmanned Ground Vehicles (UGVs), collectively termed - Attritable, Networked, Tactical Swarm (ANTS).  Each UGV in ANTS is an independently-tasked, attritable robot designed for on-demand and autonomous mobility.  When operating as a swarm, ANTS is capable of executing more advanced and coordinated, high-level capabilities across a battlespace.  ANTS will help solve some of the DoD’s biggest problems that will save lives and increase defense capabilities. Stephen Houghton and Drew Watson are the Founders and have decades of experience in self-driving cars and trucks, humanoids, and UAVs with experience from NASA, JPL, Cruise, Embark, McKinsey, Amazon, and the CIA.   Job Description Swarmbotics is on the forefront of deploying unmanned ground vehicle (UGV) swarms for defense applications and is seeking a highly skilled Embedded Hardware Engineer to join our dynamic team. This role is crucial in designing, developing, testing, and maintaining the electronic systems and components that power our unmanned ground vehicles. The engineer in this role will be responsible for design of the FireAnt's main board — the robot's single main PCBA, spanning power conversion and distribution, the high-current motor bus, an embedded microcontroller subsystem, Ethernet switching and PoE, CAN networking, and sensor and payload I/O — across its full lifecycle: requirements and architecture, circuit design and PCB layout, power management, embedded firmware, board bring-up, and support of fielded robots. The selected candidate will have the opportunity to work on cutting-edge projects, contributing to the development of advanced robotics systems from the ground up. Required Qualifications Circuit Design: Proficiency in designing mixed-signal and power circuits for battery-powered systems — battery input and precharge, high-side MOSFET switching with gate-drive design, DC-DC conversion (buck/boost, PoE), and protection circuits (TVS, signal isolation, keyed connectors, fusing) for a motor bus. PCB Layout: Experience with schematic capture and multi-layer PCB layout in Altium Designer — multi-layer boards with high-current copper planning per IPC-2221/2152 , IPC Class 3 manufacturing targets, high-speed routing ( RGMII Ethernet, differential pairs, length matching), and design for manufacturing: releasing fab packages, writing ECOs, and managing quotes and batch quality with contract manufacturers. Experience working alongside…