Founding Hardware System Engineer

About the Role

FOLD LABS is building human-facing physical intelligence for the home. We are developing intelligent physical systems that combine AI, sensing, hardware, and interaction design to understand people, environments, and routines over time. We are looking for a founding hardware engineer to own the transition from concept to functional physical systems. This is a highly hands-on role spanning mechanical design, electronics, sensors, actuators, embedded systems, compute, and rapid prototyping. You will work directly with the founders, industrial designers, and AI team to turn new interaction concepts into working machines. This is not primarily a management role.

Key Responsibilities

• Own hardware system architecture for early Fold products.
• Build functional prototypes from rough concepts and industrial design directions.
• Select and integrate sensors, cameras, microphones, actuators, motors, compute modules, batteries, and connectivity.
• Design and prototype mechanical assemblies and electromechanical systems.
• Work with custom and off-the-shelf PCBs and electronics.
• Perform board bring-up, debugging, testing, and hardware validation.
• Write or modify embedded firmware when required.
• Integrate edge compute platforms and AI hardware.
• Design hardware interfaces for perception and multimodal AI systems.
• Develop rapid prototypes using CNC, 3D printing, laser cutting, machining, and other fabrication methods.
• Work closely with industrial design to preserve product experience while solving engineering constraints.
• Define early hardware architecture that can eventually transition toward production.
• Identify suppliers, component vendors, prototyping partners, and manufacturing resources.
• Build test rigs and develop repeatable hardware validation processes.
• Debug complete systems across mechanical, electrical, firmware, and software boundaries.
• Make fast engineering tradeoffs between performance, size, cost, reliability, thermal constraints, power, and manufacturability.

Requirements & Tech Stack

• Strong experience building complex physical products or robotic systems.
• Deep hands-on prototyping experience.
• Strong understanding of electromechanical systems.
• Experience integrating motors, actuators, sensors, cameras, microphones, and embedded compute.
• Comfortable working across mechanical, electrical, and embedded disciplines.
• Experience with microcontrollers and embedded systems such as STM32, ESP32, nRF, or similar platforms.
• Experience with Linux-based embedded compute platforms such as NVIDIA Jetson, Qualcomm, Raspberry Pi, or similar systems.
• Ability to debug electronics using oscilloscopes, logic analyzers, multimeters, and other lab equipment.
• Experience with CAD and mechanical prototyping.
• Understanding of PCB design, bring-up, and hardware debugging.
• Comfortable building prototypes personally rather than only managing external vendors.
• Strong systems engineering instincts.
• Ability to work in an ambiguous 0-to-1 environment with very little existing infrastructure.

Strong Plus

• Consumer robotics, smart-home hardware, consumer electronics, or wearables.
• Autonomous systems, mechatronics, or human-robot interaction.
• Camera, vision, audio, or motor-control systems.
• Battery-powered products and edge AI hardware.
• Low-volume hardware manufacturing and EVT / DVT / PVT.
• Supplier and contract-manufacturer management.

Ideal Background

You may have worked at companies such as Apple, Nest, Google Hardware, Meta Reality Labs, Amazon Lab126, Tesla, Skydio, Zipline, robotics startups, consumer-device companies, or similar environments.

What Success Looks Like

• Take an early Fold product concept and turn it into a functioning prototype.
• Establish the initial hardware architecture.
• Rapidly evaluate sensors, actuators, compute, and mechanical approaches.
• Build multiple prototype iterations without depending on a large engineering organization.
• Create a hardware platform that our AI team can experiment on.
• Identify the major technical risks between prototype and manufacturable product.
• Help Fold build the foundation of its internal hardware engineering capability.

Who This Role Is Not For

This role is probably not a fit if your recent experience has primarily been:

• Managing large engineering teams.
• Program management.
• Supplier management without hands-on engineering.
• Pure mechanical CAD work.
• Pure PCB design.
• Pure firmware development.
• Academic robotics without significant hardware-building experience.