Top Hardware Engineer Jobs in Santa Cruz, CA

Lead failure analysis and root-cause corrective actions for networking hardware issues from field and factory sources. Analyze quality metrics, debug complex board- and system-level hardware, review new-product test reports, and drive quality improvements, change management, and multisourcing activities. Collaborate with engineering, manufacturing, operations, customer support, vendors, and customers. Provide technical leadership, document lessons learned, and mentor junior engineers.

Lead system-level electrical architecture and advanced PCBA design for next-generation EV charging platforms. Define board architectures, integrate embedded processors, high-speed interfaces, power electronics, analog sensing, and motor control, and guide products from concept through high-volume manufacturing. Partner with software, mechanical, and thermal teams, establish testing and documentation standards, resolve complex hardware issues, evaluate technologies, and mentor hardware engineers while optimizing reliability, cost, and scalability.

Designs, develops, assembles, tests, and supports computer hardware and peripherals. Responsibilities include analyzing system requirements, evaluating hardware/software interfaces, building prototypes, verifying equipment, documenting configurations and test results, selecting materials, monitoring performance, and providing technical support, training, and implementation guidance. The role requires at least three years of directly related technical experience and is remote within the United States.

Lead end-to-end hardware development for next-generation communication modules, including schematics, PCB layouts, component libraries, prototypes, test fixtures, validation, compliance testing, and in-lab or field debugging. Collaborate with firmware, systems, and mechanical engineers, maintain design documentation and databases, lead design reviews, support field-failure investigations, mentor junior engineers, and improve design processes and tooling.

Design and develop wireless power transfer and energy-harvesting hardware for IoT and wearable devices. Apply power electronics, RF and electromagnetic theory to create ICs and circuits, integrate solutions into scalable systems, optimize energy efficiency, and drive sustainable innovation for large sensor networks.

Lead a team developing embedded hardware emulators for hardware-in-the-loop testing of aircraft flight electronics. Responsibilities include understanding aircraft electrical and software architectures, building modular emulation software, enabling functional testing and fault injection, analyzing complex code and requirements, and collaborating with systems, simulation, FPGA, flight software, verification, and certification teams.

Design and optimize high-speed, high-density ASIC package layouts and substrate breakouts. Perform pinout optimization, routing, placement, stack-up, power distribution, CAD library development, feasibility studies, and productivity methodology improvements while collaborating with package leads and cross-functional teams.

Design and perform physical layout for silicon interposers using Cadence Virtuoso; run DRC/LVS and verification (Calibre, ICV, Thunder); perform feasibility studies, floorplanning, custom layout, and collaborate with package, SI, and technology teams to meet schedule, cost, manufacturability, and electrical goals.

Design and develop physical layouts for silicon interposers used in NVIDIA products. Collaborate with package technical leads, signal integrity and technology engineers, and design teams to deliver package solutions. Conduct feasibility studies, floorplanning, custom layout, design-rule and netlist verification, and layout trade-off analysis. Resolve manufacturing, electrical, cost, and scheduling issues while using Cadence tools and verification flows such as DRC and LVS.

Performs physical mask layout for mixed-signal circuits including PLLs, high-speed SerDes, ADCs, and ESD structures in submicron CMOS technologies. Collaborates with ASIC and mixed-signal engineers on VLSI integration, floor planning, custom layout, and design verification. Uses Cadence tools and verification flows, debugs DRC/LVS issues, customizes verification decks, and applies scripting skills in Perl, Python, and SKILL.

Leads electrical test hardware development and verification for TeraWave spacecraft avionics, from requirements derivation and test equipment design through qualification, acceptance, integration, and flight support. Owns test plans, procedures, interfaces, automation, instrumentation, and data acquisition. Leads electrical and RF test campaigns, anomaly investigations, root-cause analysis, and corrective actions while coordinating with systems, design, manufacturing, and production engineering teams to create scalable, high-throughput test infrastructure.

Leads electrical test hardware development and verification for TeraWave spacecraft avionics, including test equipment design, requirements derivation, procedures, test campaigns, automation, EMI/EMC testing, anomaly resolution, and production-scale test infrastructure. Coordinates with systems, design, manufacturing, and production engineering teams from concept through qualification, acceptance, integration, and flight support.

Leads electrical test hardware development and verification for TeraWave spacecraft avionics, including test equipment design, requirements derivation, procedures, integration, qualification, acceptance, and production scaling. Coordinates cross-functional teams, leads flight-hardware test campaigns, investigates anomalies, drives corrective actions, and develops automation and data acquisition infrastructure for repeatable, high-throughput testing.

Leads electrical test hardware development and verification for TeraWave spacecraft avionics. Responsibilities include deriving requirements, designing scalable test equipment and ground support equipment, developing procedures, leading bench and vehicle-level test campaigns, performing RF and EMI/EMC testing, investigating anomalies, and implementing automation and data acquisition infrastructure. The role coordinates across systems, design, manufacturing, and production engineering teams while supporting qualification, acceptance, integration, and flight readiness.

Designs and develops hardware test boards and platforms for high-speed electro-optical device characterization in R&D and manufacturing environments. Performs laboratory testing, analog design and debugging, test-system development, hardware bring-up, and firmware development for microcontrollers. Supports System-on-Chip optical engine development and interfaces with vendors. Preferred experience includes power supply design, advanced PCB stack-ups, optical instrumentation, automated measurements, and coherent optical communications.

Designs and validates electrical and electronic components, subsystems, integrated circuitry, and hardware solutions. Develops test plans covering tolerances, form, fit, function, shock, vibration, EMI, safety, reliability, thermal performance, and power. Performs feasibility, margin, validation, modeling, and empirical analyses; collaborates with internal and outsourced engineering partners; evaluates production reliability and supports prototype fabrication for reliable, cost-effective products.

Tests, validates, and troubleshoots next-generation cloud server hardware for performance, power, reliability, and quality. Develops test scripts, documents results, identifies defects, recommends improvements, and resolves hardware issues across engineering and manufacturing environments. Requires hands-on embedded systems debugging, Linux and scripting experience, and knowledge of server architecture, firmware, operating systems, networking, storage, and hardware acceleration technologies.

Develop and operate Akamai’s Linux-based cloud infrastructure, including bare-metal and virtual machine platforms, kernels, operating systems, and KVM/QEMU virtualization. Build software, automation, observability, and infrastructure enhancements at scale; troubleshoot complex distributed-system issues; collaborate across engineering and operations; mentor team members; and participate in on-call service restoration.

Designs and maintains high-speed digital hardware for Nokia Service Router products. Responsibilities include ultra-high-speed PCB circuit design, simulation, verification testing, board bring-up, laboratory debugging, and taking complex board designs from concept through production release. The role requires collaboration with engineering teams, ownership of hardware integrity, and practical use of oscilloscopes, logic analyzers, and digital debugging tools.

Design and deliver complex hardware systems and sub-assemblies from concept through production. Responsibilities include defining specifications, architecting systems, evaluating suppliers, guiding schematic and layout reviews, developing EDVT/MDVT and EMI/EMC test plans, and validating prototypes in the lab. The role requires cross-functional collaboration across architecture, semiconductor, software, manufacturing, and external partners, with emphasis on high-speed optical and electrical I/O, signal and power integrity, thermal performance, reliability, compliance, cost, and schedule.

The role involves optimizing hardware support within a software stack for AI model deployment, collaborating with teams and hardware vendors to enhance performance and portability across platforms.

Designs electrical control systems for conveyor and material-handling equipment, including power calculations, 480V and 120V schematics, I/O drawings, PLC and panel layouts, field-device layouts, and material specifications. Collaborates with customers, sales engineers, and project managers to define requirements. Inspects, tests, commissions, and troubleshoots motor control panels for compliance with design standards, codes, and project specifications.

Develop and own compute and GPU server platforms from architecture through global deployment. Responsibilities include schematic and layout reviews, design for manufacturability, new product introduction, board and system bring-up, validation, debugging, firmware and BIOS feature management, technology qualification, and vendor coordination. The role requires hands-on server architecture, board-level design, Linux and scripting expertise, platform validation, and five-day-per-week presence in the Cambridge office.

Leads end-to-end electrical engineering for access control hardware, including component selection, PCB design, DFM, validation, compliance, failure analysis, and production readiness. Collaborates with mechanical and software teams on integrated products, develops quantitative validation plans, manages EMC and regulatory certification, and mentors junior engineers. The role also supports high-speed digital, power, imaging, wireless, and embedded system integration.

Pipeline hiring for hardware engineers at all experience levels. Work includes circuit board design, schematic capture, component selection and prototype bring-up, hardware debug/testing and failure analysis, integration with firmware/software teams, and design for manufacturability with production handoff.