About the Company

Our client is a seed-stage startup building a new class of distributed sensing systems enabled by modern RF, communications, and real-time processing infrastructure.

Traditional sensing systems are often expensive, centralized, and increasingly vulnerable in modern operating environments. Our client is taking a different approach, developing systems designed to be more scalable, resilient, and deployable across a wide range of conditions.

Recent advances in satellite and communications infrastructure have created a meaningful shift in the availability of RF signals globally. Our client is leveraging these conditions to enable sensing capabilities that were previously impractical to deploy at scale.

The long-term vision is a low-cost, distributed sensing layer that can be deployed broadly rather than relying on a small number of high-cost systems. This enables more persistent awareness, greater resilience, and new capabilities across defense and commercial applications.

They are currently in a rapid build phase, working toward an early system demonstration with strong interest and backing from government and commercial stakeholders.

This is a unique opportunity to join at the ground floor of a high-caliber founding team composed of former SpaceX and Capella engineers, building a system with real traction.

This is a direct hire, permanent placement position for a client of AdAstra Talent Advisors. This position is based in San Francisco, CA. More company details will be shared during an initial call.

About the Role

Our client is seeking a hands-on Electrical Engineer to support the development of advanced electronic and RF-enabled systems for a novel distributed sensing platform.

This role owns electronics development from schematic design through PCB bring-up, integration, and system-level validation for early prototypes and future product platforms.

This is a highly hands-on role built around building hardware, troubleshooting systems in the lab, and taking designs from initial concepts through validation. You will work closely with RF and mechanical engineers across the full hardware development cycle.

This is the company's first Electrical Engineer hire, and one of the first two hires on its new Hardware Engineering team, reporting directly to the Head of Hardware. The role sits on the antenna/hardware side of engineering, with immediate priority on rapid prototyping toward the company's next field-test milestone.

Responsibilities

• Design and build prototype hardware rapidly, iterating toward near-term field-test milestones ahead of longer-term production design

• Design and develop analog, digital, power, and control electronics for prototype and product hardware, including power-distribution, regulation, monitoring, and protection circuits

• Create schematics and support PCB layout for mixed-signal and control boards

• Develop control and interface electronics for RF components, sensors, converters, switches, and related modules, supporting interfaces such as SPI, I²C, UART, USB, Ethernet, and GPIO

• Perform PCB bring-up, debugging, rework, and functional testing

• Integrate RF, digital, power, mechanical, and computing subsystems

• Develop test fixtures, cables, harnesses, and prototype support hardware, coordinating with fabrication and assembly vendors and reviewing manufacturing packages

• Prepare design documentation, test procedures, bills of materials, and engineering reports

• Support environmental, thermal, field, and system-level testing

• Collaborate with RF engineers to address grounding, shielding, noise, interference, and signal-integrity issues

Requirements

• BS in Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering, or a related field, or equivalent industry experience

• 3–7 years of relevant hardware-development experience

• Experience with schematic capture and PCB development

• Strong understanding of analog, digital, and power electronics

• Hands-on experience with oscilloscopes, multimeters, power supplies, logic analyzers, and related laboratory equipment

• Experience bringing up and debugging assembled PCBs

• Familiarity with embedded hardware interfaces and common communication protocols

• Ability to interpret component datasheets and translate system requirements into practical hardware designs

• Strong troubleshooting, documentation, and communication skills

• Ability to