Demo

Hardware Engineer, Materra

X, The Moonshot Factory
Mountain View, CA Full Time
POSTED ON 5/3/2026
AVAILABLE BEFORE 5/31/2026
The Team

Materra is on a mission to radically reduce global waste and move to a true circular economy. The team has developed technology that identifies waste material at the molecular level—starting with plastics. Materra works with industry partners to improve the way recycling centers process plastics using AI and robotics, to make recycling more affordable and scalable.

The Role

You will be a hands-on senior hardware engineer on the project, working alongside the software team and managing a small team of hardware engineers in the future. You should bring HW automation & actuation expertise, with additional experience in integrating multiple sensors and imaging technologies for large scale data acquisition, and integration with software platforms. Familiarity or experience applying these skills to scientific fields in chemical engineering, materials science, or high-throughput experimentation is a plus. We are looking for passionate and driven people, who are comfortable moving between creative, big-picture thinking and tactical execution in a fast-paced, fluid environment.

This is an incredibly dynamic role and requires high cross-functional communication, people skills, organization, and planning. The ideal candidate is a self-starter and has a track record of effectively operating in a dynamic loosely structured environment while leading/co-leading a small team (e.g. startup, launching a new products or systems from prototype through initial revenue).

How You Will Make 10X Impact

  • Setting the hardware technical direction for both research prototypes and product deliverables with the early stage leadership team.
  • Guiding and mentoring junior team members
  • Building the whole solution: system integration from lab prototype through customer/field deployment
  • Collaborate and coordinate with the project leadership

What You Should Have

  • Industry Experience with an MS, or PhD in a STEM field such as Electrical Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Robotics, or Automation
  • Integration of HW and SW systems experience, especially with automation, robotics, machine learning systems, algorithms or applications such as: deep learning and computer vision.
  • Demonstrated experience delivering a product or service.
  • An ability to thrive in unstructured work environments with rapidly changing requirements.

It’d Be Great If You Also Had These

  • Experience in any or all of the following: optical trains (particularly in spectroscopy), embedded firmware, fusing heterogeneous sensor streams, industrial hardware relevant deployments, prototyping, materials analysis, Linux programming
  • Demonstrated personal passion to apply talents towards solving big global problems.
  • Startup / early product or platform development experience, and scaling those systems to deployment
  • Excellent at prioritization and time management.
  • Solid written and verbal communication skills.
  • Experience with TensorFlow, Google Cloud tools (Cloud Storage, Compute Engine, BigQuery, Dataflow).

The US base salary range for this full-time position is $159,000 - $239,000 bonus equity benefits. Within the range, individual pay is determined by work location and additional factors, including job-related skills, experience, and relevant education or training. Your recruiter can share more about the specific salary range for your location during the hiring process.

Please note that the compensation details listed in US role postings reflect the base salary only, and do not include bonus, equity, or benefits.

Salary.com Estimation for Hardware Engineer, Materra in Mountain View, CA
$116,117 to $133,752
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