The Role
Own the electrical architecture of ruggedized wearable hardware from concept through volume production. Design multilayer PCBs, power and battery systems, high-speed interfaces, and integrated optical, wireless, IMU, audio, and environmental sensors. Lead hardware bring-up, validation, signal integrity, manufacturing testing, DFM, DFT, and production ramp while collaborating with mechanical, firmware, manufacturing, and industrial design teams.
Summary Generated by Built In
About Ironsite
The Role
What You'll Do
Technical Challenges You'll Solve
What We're Looking For
What Success Looks Like
Location, Compensation, & Perks
Why This Role
Ironsite is building the intelligence layer for the physical world. We design our own wearable hardware, deploy it alongside craft workers, and transform a shift's footage into a next-morning report. Our internal team and purpose-built models label the data overnight and deliver actionable insights to superintendents by 5 AM.
We are accelerating the speed, efficiency, and predictability of construction, especially for complex, mission-critical infrastructure projects, including data centers, LNG facilities, sports stadiums, hospitals, and other large-scale developments, by training AI models on egocentric construction footage and labor productivity data. We are built with a pro-worker philosophy at our core: we believe technology should empower the workforce, not replace it. We're working to give craft workers and project leaders better visibility into what's happening on-site, while creating a system where the reality of construction and the chaos of each day is finally available to the people running the project.
Ironsite is deployed across several of the largest active construction projects in the country. To date, we've captured more than 100,000 hours of construction footage across seven states, now process thousands of hours of site activity every day, and maintain a worker opt-out rate below two percent. This is enabled by a workforce-first architecture that anonymizes devices, captures no audio, and never releases raw video.
Ironsite is backed by leading investors (8VC, South Park Commons, Saga Ventures) and prominent operators across technology and construction, including Eric Schmidt, Jeff Dean, Jeff Rothschild, Mark Leslie, Scott Wu, Eric Glyman, Karim Atiyeh, Russell Kaplan, and others, alongside over a dozen construction industry operators who have joined us as partners in building this.
Longer term, we believe Ironsite is the foundation for what construction becomes in the next decade. We think the systems we're building are the operating system for how the physical world gets built, and will unlock a fundamentally different way of respect for our workforce. One where craft workers are more valued, more visible, and better paid for the skill they bring, and where the industry finally has the intelligence layer that makes autonomous construction possible. Both futures start with the same foundation.
We're hiring a Senior Electrical Engineer to own the electrical architecture of Ironsite's wearable hardware.
This is a foundational role on the hardware team. You'll design and validate the PCBs, power systems, and multi-sensor integration that make Ironsite's devices work reliably on active jobsites, on ruggedized wearables operating in some of the harshest environments in American industry. Power efficiency, sensor performance, thermal behavior, and integration density are all electrical engineering problems in this seat. If the hardware architecture doesn't hold up, nothing else does.
You'll work directly with mechanical engineering, firmware engineering, manufacturing, and industrial design across the full product lifecycle, from initial concept through volume production. You'll own multi-layer PCB design, high-speed signal integrity, power management, and multi-sensor integration for optical, audio, wireless, IMU, and environmental subsystems. This is one of the most technically demanding seats in the company, and one of the highest-leverage.
Electrical architecture and PCB design.
- Design multi-layer PCBs from concept through DFM, including schematic capture, layout, and signal integrity analysis for high-speed and mixed-signal designs.
- Own end-to-end electrical architecture for wearable hardware programs, from feasibility through hardware bring-up and production release.
- Optimize designs for size, power efficiency, thermal performance, and integration density, with the constraints that matter in a wearable running an 8-12 hour shift.
- Drive component selection, sourcing collaboration with supply chain, and design tradeoffs across cost, performance, and manufacturability.
Power systems and battery integration.
- Design and validate power delivery systems, including battery management, charging, protection circuits, and low-power modes.
- Own the electrical side of battery selection and integration, and partner with mechanical engineering on packaging and thermal design.
- Build the power architecture that supports continuous recording, encoding, wireless upload, and on-device inference across a full shift without failure.
Multi-sensor integration.
- Integrate optical (imaging), audio (where relevant), wireless (BLE, Wi-Fi, LTE), IMU, and environmental sensors into a cohesive hardware platform.
- Own high-speed interfaces (MIPI CSI, USB, PCIe, and similar) and the signal integrity work that makes them reliable at scale.
- Partner with firmware engineering on sensor bring-up, driver validation, and system-level tuning.
Bring-up, validation, and test.
- Lead hardware bring-up on new PCB revisions, from first power-on through validated production release.
- Design and execute characterization and validation test plans across environmental conditions (temperature, humidity, vibration, EMI/EMC).
- Own manufacturing test coverage, including ICT, functional test, and factory calibration in partnership with manufacturing engineering.
Cross-functional partnership.
- Collaborate with mechanical, firmware, manufacturing, and industrial design across the full product lifecycle, from concept through DFM, DFT, and volume production.
- Represent electrical engineering in design reviews, and drive design decisions that balance electrical, mechanical, firmware, and manufacturing constraints.
- Support contract manufacturers with technical guidance, design updates, and issue resolution during production ramp.
- Fitting more capability into a smaller, lighter wearable. Every new generation of Ironsite hardware needs to be more capable while getting smaller and lighter, because wearability drives adoption. You'll make the density, power, and thermal tradeoffs that let us pack more into less without compromising performance or reliability.
- Powering continuous capture through a full shift. All-day recording on a single charge requires power engineering discipline at every layer, from component selection through architecture. Every microamp matters, and every electrical decision has power implications that ripple through the product experience.
- High-speed integration in a small form factor. MIPI CSI for the camera, wireless stacks, high-speed data paths for on-device processing, all in a device that has to be small enough to embed in a hardhat and rugged enough to survive a jobsite. Signal integrity in that context is genuinely hard.
- Design for real-world reliability. IP67-rated devices operating in dust, moisture, temperature extremes, impact, and vibration for years. Electrical robustness at that level is a discipline, not a feature. You'll design the systems that keep the fleet healthy at scale.
- Design for volume manufacturing. Every design decision has manufacturability and cost implications that compound at scale. You'll design with production in mind from day one, and partner with manufacturing engineering to drive the DFM iterations that make ramp smooth rather than painful.
Required
- 6+ years of hands-on experience shipping electrical designs on production hardware, with at least one full product lifecycle delivered in wearables, cameras, consumer electronics, or ruggedized hardware at real volume.
- Deep expertise in multi-layer PCB design, schematic capture, and layout for mixed-signal and high-speed designs.
- Strong experience with power system design, including battery management, charging, protection, and low-power techniques for wearable or portable devices.
- Hands-on experience integrating optical imaging systems (MIPI CSI or similar), wireless connectivity (BLE, Wi-Fi, LTE), IMU, and environmental sensors into cohesive hardware platforms.
- Experience with high-speed signal integrity analysis and design for reliable operation at production yields.
- Comfort reading schematics, datasheets, and using standard hardware lab tools (oscilloscope, logic analyzer, network analyzer, thermal camera, protocol analyzers) to debug hardware and hardware-software integration issues.
- Systems thinking across the full hardware stack. From silicon and PCB through mechanical integration and firmware, you understand how electrical decisions propagate throughout the product.
- Experience working directly with contract manufacturers on hardware bring-up, DFM, DFT, and production ramp.
- A background in Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering, or a related field, or the equivalent experience.
Strongly preferred
- Experience shipping wearable products at consumer volumes (Fitbit, Oura, Whoop, GoPro, Bose, Apple, Meta, Snap, or similar).
- Experience with camera sensor integration and imaging system design, including selection, integration, and characterization of image sensors.
- Experience designing for ruggedized industrial or outdoor environments (IP-rated devices, temperature extremes, EMI/EMC compliance).
- Experience with battery cell selection, custom battery pack design, and battery safety certification.
- Ability to generate clear and concise technical documentation for internal teams, contract manufacturers, and executive stakeholders.
Nice to have
- Familiarity with contract manufacturers in Taiwan, mainland China, or Southeast Asia.
- Experience with FCC, CE, or other regulatory certification processes for wearable or wireless devices.
- Experience with prior electrical engineering leadership at a hardware startup that scaled from early volumes to full production.
- Mandarin or Vietnamese language proficiency.
- Familiarity with mechanical CAD tools (SolidWorks, Fusion 360) for cross-functional collaboration.
- First 90 days. You know our hardware platform cold, including the electrical architecture, the sensor stack, the power system, and the manufacturing test infrastructure. You've contributed meaningful design improvements to a current or upcoming hardware revision.
- First 6 months. You've owned a major electrical engineering initiative end to end, whether it's a next-generation hardware bring-up, a power architecture redesign, or a sensor integration that materially improves what our devices can do. Your work is shaping what ships next.
- First 12 months. You're the internal authority on electrical engineering at Ironsite. Our hardware is more capable, more reliable, and more manufacturable because of you. When we scale from thousands of devices to hundreds of thousands, we do it because the electrical architecture you designed holds up.
Location, Compensation, & Perks
- San Francisco Bay Area (on-site)
- Base salary: $225k-$300k per year, commensurate with experience
- Significant early-stage equity
- Full benefits including health, dental, vision, and 401(k) with 6% match
- Daily catered breakfast and lunch
- Office in San Francisco, next to Oracle Park and the Caltrain
Final compensation is determined by experience, location, and level.
Every category-defining hardware company has an electrical engineer who was the reason the hardware actually worked. Not because they had the cleverest circuit, but because they cared obsessively about the last 2% of power efficiency, the reliability edge cases at scale, and the manufacturing details that separate a product that ships from a product that gets returned.
Ironsite is at that moment. We have the product, the customers, the funding, the manufacturing partnerships, and a hardware roadmap that scales into hundreds of thousands of units. What we need is the electrical engineer who is going to design the hardware architecture that lets us get there.
If you've spent your career shipping electrical designs on wearables or ruggedized hardware at volume, and you're ready to do it again on a product that matters more than most, we want to talk.
CompensationThe base pay range for this role is $225,000 – $300,000 per year.
Skills Required
- 6+ years of hands-on experience shipping electrical designs on production hardware
- At least one full product lifecycle delivered in wearables, cameras, consumer electronics, or ruggedized hardware at real volume
- Deep expertise in multilayer PCB design, schematic capture, and mixed-signal and high-speed layout
- Strong power system design experience, including battery management, charging, protection, and low-power techniques
- Hands-on experience integrating optical imaging systems, wireless connectivity, IMU, and environmental sensors
- Experience with high-speed signal integrity analysis and production-yield reliability
- Ability to use oscilloscopes, logic analyzers, network analyzers, thermal cameras, and protocol analyzers for hardware debugging
- Systems thinking across silicon, PCB, mechanical integration, firmware, and the full hardware stack
- Experience working directly with contract manufacturers on hardware bring-up, DFM, DFT, and production ramp
- Background in Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering, a related field, or equivalent experience
- Experience shipping wearable products at consumer volumes
- Camera sensor integration and imaging system design experience
- Experience designing ruggedized industrial or outdoor hardware, including IP-rated devices, temperature extremes, and EMI/EMC compliance
- Experience with battery cell selection, custom battery pack design, and battery safety certification
- Ability to produce technical documentation for internal teams, contract manufacturers, and executive stakeholders
- Familiarity with contract manufacturers in Taiwan, mainland China, or Southeast Asia
- Experience with FCC, CE, or other regulatory certification processes for wearable or wireless devices
- Prior electrical engineering leadership at a hardware startup scaling from early volumes to full production
- Mandarin or Vietnamese language proficiency
- Familiarity with SolidWorks or Fusion 360
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The Company
What We Do
Ironsite AI is a construction technology company that leverages wearable cameras and AI vision models to drive on-site productivity, safety, and training. By equipping workers with smart hard hats, the platform captures real-time data to analyze field activities, optimize labor allocation, and identify safety risks. Their mission is to modernize construction management by providing data-driven insights that help contractors reduce labor costs and deliver projects more efficiently.
