Head of Engineering

About the Role

This is a pivotal technical leadership role at an early-stage wearable sensing and robotics startup. As Head of Engineering, you will own the full technical execution of a body-worn sensing platform — from architecture through shipping — while leading a distributed team of specialists across India and San Francisco. You will make consequential design and integration decisions across power systems, sensor synchronization, firmware, and mechanical domains every week, with direct impact on both product quality and underlying model capabilities.

This role is based in India (on-site), with regular travel to San Francisco, CA, USA (approximately one week per month).

What You'll Do

• Own technical execution of a body-worn sensing platform from architecture through production shipping.

• Lead and coordinate a distributed team of hardware specialists across India and the US.

• Make design and integration decisions across power systems, sensor synchronization, firmware/embedded Linux, and mechanical structure.

• Define and maintain the complete hardware system architecture so all subsystems — mechanical, electrical, and firmware — integrate into a coherent wearable product.

• Translate product requirements into clear, actionable engineering briefs for the remote team.

• Review and critique mechanical designs with engineering justification focused on wearability and durability.

• Debug firmware and system issues using schematics, logic analyzers, and serial logs.

• Shape hiring criteria and interview processes to grow team capability over time.

• Take hands-on ownership of meaningful systems from day one and measure your impact on product and model capabilities.

What We're Looking For

Dealbreakers — you must have all of the following:

• US citizenship or valid US visa (required; no sponsorship available).

• 6–10+ years of hardware engineering experience building wearable devices, robotics, motion capture systems, or field-deployed hardware.

• Hands-on, first-principles power systems expertise: personally designed a multi-rail battery-powered architecture, can size protection circuits, select regulator topologies, and analyze inrush/brownout behavior on first power-on; comfortable reading and critiquing schematics.

• At least one shipped hardware product with a full arc from first prototype to real end users.

• Willingness to be based in India and travel to San Francisco approximately once per month.

Required skills and experience:

• Deep experience solving sensor synchronization challenges across mismatched sample rates and variable bus latencies, including firmware-level timestamping and diagnosing real dataset misalignment.

• Firmware and embedded Linux experience: bringing up SoM/SBC platforms and debugging timing, interrupt, and buffer issues.

• Strong mechanical engineering judgment: load paths, tolerance stack-up, strain relief, and real-world wearable ergonomics.

• Proven ability to lead distributed teams across time zones and maintain engineering quality without daily in-person oversight.

• Prior operating experience as a staff, principal, or founding engineer (not solely as an engineering manager).

• Strong written communication skills and demonstrated ability to translate product needs into precise engineering briefs.

Nice to have:

• Supply chain and vendor management experience for hardware components.

• Familiarity with regulatory compliance (UL/IEC) for wearable devices.

• Experience with mass production handoff and manufacturing scale-up.

Location

This role is on-site in India, with regular travel to San Francisco, CA, USA (approximately one week per month). Candidates must already hold US citizenship or a valid US visa — visa sponsorship is not available.

Compensation & Benefits

• Salary: $140,000 – $210,000 USD annually

• Opportunity to take on significant ownership and shape the engineering culture at a critical stage of growth in the wearable robotics space.