What are the responsibilities and job description for the Embedded Hardware Engineer position at AbleForce?
Please, no third parties. Permanent residents only.
This is primarily an onsite position in Durham, NC, and no relocation assistance is available.
Main Duties & Responsibilities:
- Design and deliver embedded electronic hardware used within industrial sensor platforms, supporting the full lifecycle from early concept development through production readiness.
- Create and maintain detailed schematics, select appropriate components, and develop PCB layouts for compact embedded boards while accounting for signal integrity, power efficiency, and manufacturing feasibility.
- Engineer and validate designs utilizing embedded processors such as the ESP32 family, along with supporting components including ADCs, power regulation circuits, battery management systems, and peripheral interfaces.
- Build prototypes and perform validation testing using laboratory instrumentation, in-system diagnostics, and iterative debugging techniques.
- Work closely with firmware developers to integrate hardware with multiple firmware branches, enabling new features and diagnosing system-level behavior.
- Develop targeted firmware utilities for diagnostics and validation such as logging hooks, input validation routines, and test utilities to accelerate hardware bring-up and troubleshooting.
- Partner with internal test, manufacturing, and field teams to refine product designs based on operational data, reliability findings, and customer deployment feedback.
- Assist with production readiness and ongoing sustaining engineering activities as devices transition into higher-volume manufacturing.
- Contribute to continuous improvements of deployed hardware through structured troubleshooting and root-cause analysis.
Skills & Requirements:
- Bachelors degree in Electrical Engineering or a related field is highly preferred.
- Hands-on experience designing embedded electronics built around ESP32-class microcontrollers or comparable embedded processors.
- Practical background in power system design, including battery-powered electronics, charging circuits, and power management architectures.
- Experience producing PCB schematics and layouts for dense, small-footprint circuit boards.
- Solid understanding of mixed-signal electronics, including analog-to-digital conversion and signal conditioning techniques.
- Familiarity with board-level communication interfaces and serial protocols such as SPI, I C, UART, and CAN.
- Ability to troubleshoot hardware/firmware interaction issues using tools such as oscilloscopes, logic analyzers, and embedded diagnostic code.
- Strong analytical thinking and structured debugging approach when addressing complex system issues.
- Effective communicator who can collaborate across firmware, hardware, testing, and manufacturing disciplines.
- Detail-oriented with a focus on building reliable, production-ready electronics.
Preferred Skills:
- Experience supporting hardware products through manufacturing ramp and field deployment.
- Exposure to industrial sensor platforms or ruggedized embedded systems used in demanding environments.
- Experience writing or contributing to embedded firmware, particularly for diagnostic or validation purposes.
- Familiarity with additional or custom microcontroller architectures beyond ESP32.
- Awareness of EMI/EMC considerations when designing electronics intended for industrial environments.
tags: senior embedded engineer, senior embedded systems engineer, senior embedded systems hardware engineer, senior electronics engineer, senior electronic engineer, senior mechanical engineer