Flux - Head of Hardware Design

San Francisco, California, United States$245k - $270k+ Equity6mo ago

In Office Director NA Manufacturing Hardware Wireless Product Designer Reporting Team Leadership Training Development Mentoring Close

Requirements

• Deep EE breadth + depth with real products in the field. Comfortable spanning: • RF & wireless: from sub‑GHz to mmWave; matching, filtering, antenna/feed layout. • EMI/EMC & ESD: design‑for‑compliance, grounding/return paths, shielding, filtering. • Power electronics: DC‑DC (buck/boost), PMICs, PoE, motor/actuator control, power sequencing, efficiency/thermal trade‑offs. • Analog & mixed‑signal: sensor interfaces, data converters, low‑noise design. • High‑speed digital: DDRx, PCIe/SerDes, USB‑C/USB4, MIPI, Ethernet (1G–25G+); timing, skew, and equalization considerations. • SI/PI: signal/power integrity analysis, decoupling strategies, return‑path control. • PCB/stackup expertise: material selection and stackup definition, controlled impedance, differential pair tuning & length‑matching, via strategies (blind/buried, microvia, backdrill), HDI (high‑density interconnect), panelization, and build rules with fabs/EMS. • DFM/DFT & manufacturing: hands‑on bring‑up and debug, test coverage, fixture definition; tight collaboration with CMs/ODMs. • Tooling fluency: meaningful time in multiple ECADs (e.g., Altium, Cadence Allegro/OrCAD, Mentor Xpedition, KiCad, Zuken) and experience with simulation tools (SPICE, SI/PI such as ADS/HyperLynx/SIwave; 3D EM such as HFSS), plus lab instrumentation (oscilloscope, VNA, logic analyzer, power analyzer). • Product sense & communication: ability to turn messy user needs into simple workflows; excellent written specs, diagrams, and presentations; confident with senior leadership and deep‑dive technical reviews. • Leadership at multiple altitudes: thrive as both a hands‑on engineer and a manager; co-develop core ECAD product strategy. Hire, mentor, and scale processes while staying close to the work. • Experience in a larger technical org (e.g., hardware product management or lead EE for critical subsystems at a world‑class company) with a track record of shipping at scale.

Responsibilities

• Drive ECAD feature design & specs – Craft product requirements for core ECAD behaviors across placement/routing, constraints management, stackup, impedance control, DRC/DFM, manufacturing outputs, and prototyping workflows. Co-author specs, validate by running dogfooding initiatives, beta programs, and scaled user feedback. • Be the design partner to AI/ML – Teach the world’s first AI hardware engineer how to design successful products. Define best practices, guardrails, and evaluation harnesses; curate datasets; review AI‑generated designs; create the AI expertise that will help more people build successful hardware on their first production run, without releasing the magic smoke. • Develop real hardware – Lead quick‑turn-around prototypes (from schematic to bring‑up) that exercise product/AI capabilities. Instrument designs for SI/PI and power/thermal validation; close the loop with data. • Amplify user insight – Adopt ownership and improve upon current user experience signals, feedback loops, and channeling user input into our iterative product design. Strategically invest in deeper customer relationships. Champion the user’s voice in cross‑functional forums. Partner closely with our software engineering department in ensuring AI evaluations are reflective of real-world user requirements. • Product – Be the "voice of the customer" within the organization, addressing vision, strategy, research & discovery, prioritization and cross-functional leadership. • Prior design‑partner or customer‑facing role (product management, applications, FAEs, field engineering, or cross‑functional liaison) that turned feedback into product wins. • Hands‑on across ECAD platforms; passion for great engineering tools and workflows. • Practical exposure to AI/ML (prompting/evaluation, data curation/labeling, or integrating ML‑assisted design tools).

Benefits

• Flux is taking the hard out of hardware. To do this, we’re building the world's first AI hardware engineer. Founded in 2019, our platform enables anyone to go from idea to manufacturable board using nothing more than a natural language prompt. This democratizes a process that has historically required years of specialized expertise. • We're going after a $15B+ electronic design automation market, backed by 8VC, Bain Capital Ventures, Liquid 2 Ventures, Outsiders Fund, Figma board member John Lilly, and GitHub founder Tom Preston-Werner. In February 2026, we closed a total of $37M in funding to accelerate that mission. • What happens when we unlock the ability for anyone to make hardware? We fundamentally reshape the world. That's our mission, and we're just getting started. • Competitive salary and meaningful equity, plus comprehensive benefits. Title/level will match experience and impact. • Send a your resume, a quick cover letter, and any links to public designs or talks. • Email: [email protected] • Subject: Head of Hardware Design – Your Name