Job Description

Senior Electrical Hardware Engineer - Wireless Products

San Diego, CA (Onsite) · Full-Time · Senior

About Us

We are a stealth-mode deep-tech startup dedicated to connecting the world’s assets so they can be actively tracked, managed, and protected. We are building a device similar to an industrial-strength AirTag that communicates directly with satellites, peers, and ground infrastructure. To do this, we’ve invested heavily in our own custom silicon and waveform. By vertically integrating from custom silicon and novel waveforms up through the application layer, we have built a direct-to-satellite IoT network that communicates at a fraction of current costs and power envelopes, and with receiver sensitivity and battery life that existing architectures cannot match.

Our custom ASIC is returning from fabrication. Our commercial protocol stack spans a novel MAC and PHY architecture, multi-hop mesh routing, and location tracking. The tech is proven, the TAM is gargantuan, and the founders have signed LOIs and conditional orders worth several billion dollars in ARR across applications ranging from supply chain logistics to laptop and cattle tracking.

Our Team and Values

Joining our team means stepping into a small, high-caliber team united by a clear mission. We operate on two core values: high trust and high performance. We believe that small, focused groups of engineers, unburdened by the bureaucracy of large tech companies, can create transformative technology at a breakneck pace. On our team, you'll have real ownership, support when you hit hard problems, and a meaningful role in building something genuinely new at the silicon and protocol layer.

Location: Onsite in San Diego (with occasional WFH flexibility)

Employment: Full-time

The Role

We’re looking for a Senior Hardware Engineer who can contribute to system architecture and independently drive board-level designs from concept through validation, manage vendor interactions, and contribute to robust product development processes.

What You’ll Do

• Lead the end-to-end hardware design cycle: architecture input, schematic capture, PCB layout oversight (Altium), bring-up, validation, and troubleshooting
• Design mixed-signal hardware systems spanning high-speed digital, analog, power management, and wireless/radio subsystems
• Perform hands-on board bring-up, debugging, and lab characterization using oscilloscopes, logic analyzers, spectrum analyzers, VNAs, signal generators, power supplies, and other test equipment
• Troubleshoot system-level issues involving power integrity, signal integrity, interference, spurious emissions, and radio performance
• Own prototype builds, BOM management, and vendor coordination with PCB fabrication and assembly partners; drive DFM/DFT reviews to ensure design robustness, reliability, and manufacturability
• Support FCC/CE regulatory compliance activities and pre-compliance testing
• Establish and improve hardware lifecycle processes, including BOM governance, revision control, engineering change orders (ECOs), component management, and documentation practices
• Own hardware development activities independently from prototype through production

Required Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in Electrical Engineering or equivalent
• 7+ years of hardware design experience preferred (minimum 5 years required)
• Experience driving processor/FPGA/SoC selection and sizing trade studies as well as high-speed digital interfaces, including DDR memory subsystems
• Experience designing, integrating, and validating mixed-signal boards, with an understanding of frequency synthesis, phase noise, spurious emissions, receiver sensitivity, frequency accuracy/stability, and the impact of power integrity, signal integrity, and interference on radio performance
• Strong hands-on laboratory skills and ability to debug complex hardware issues
• Proficiency with Altium Designer
• Experience managing hardware lifecycle processes, including BOM management, revision control, engineering change orders (ECOs), and component documentation

Nice-to-Haves

• Prior experience in satellite communications, cellular, GNSS, aerospace, instrumentation, or other high-reliability electronics
• Experience with mechanical CAD (e.g., enclosures, faceplates)
• Experience with formal PLM systems or implementing PLM workflows in a growing organization
• Experience in a startup or small-team environment

Why You’ll Love Working Here

• Foundational moment: the chip is coming back from fabrication now — people who join at this stage define what the company becomes
• High ownership and autonomy
• Life-transforming equity ownership, competitive salary, comprehensive health benefits
• High growth potential as we scale
• From lab to field: you'll see your work in real deployments — warehouses, aircraft, agricultural operations

If you enjoy owning complex technical challenges end-to-end and want to help build industry-leading communication technology, we’d be excited to talk. To apply, please send your resume to

careers@esperwireless.com

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