Engineering Lab Technician

Zero Point Motion is building a new generation of inertial sensors using silicon photonics and MEMS. We are developing sensors that can measure motion with far greater sensitivity, lower drift, and better immunity to electrical noise than conventional approaches. Our technology has the potential to change how robots, vehicles, autonomous systems, industrial machines, and defence platforms understand movement in the physical world.

We are an early‑stage, VC‑backed deep‑tech company based in Bristol. The team is small, ambitious, and highly technical. We are building something difficult from the ground up, which means the lab matters. The way we build, test, organise, automate, document, and maintain our setups directly shapes how quickly the company can move.

We are looking for someone who wants to be part of that journey.

We are hiring an Engineering Lab Technician to support the build, test, maintenance, and day‑to‑day running of our engineering lab. This is a hands‑on role for someone who enjoys practical engineering. You will work across mechanical fixtures, 3D printed parts, soldered assemblies, test equipment, electrical setups, optical and sensor rigs, and Python‑based automation.

Some of the work will be repetitive. Some of it will be detailed and delicate. Some of it will involve debugging things that do not work the first time. That is part of building real hardware.

The right person will enjoy making things work properly. They will be careful, reliable, curious, and willing to learn. They will take pride in doing practical work well, whether that means building a fixture, soldering a cable, automating a test, checking inventory, or helping an engineer get a setup running before a deadline.

This is a good role for someone who wants to grow inside a startup and become trusted as a central part of the engineering team.

You will help us build the practical foundation of the company: the lab systems, test setups, fixtures, tools, scripts, and routines that allow the engineering team to move faster.

You will not be sitting far away from the technology. You will be close to the hardware, close to the experiments, and close to the problems we are trying to solve.

Over time, we want this person to become someone who understands how the lab works, knows where things are, knows what needs improving, and can help the team turn ideas into working setups quickly and carefully.

You will help build, modify, and maintain test setups used by the engineering team. This may include mechanical fixtures, 3D printed parts, soldered cables, electrical test boards, optical mounts, sensor rigs, and general lab infrastructure.

You will also help improve these setups over time so they become easier to use, more reliable, and more repeatable.

Hardware development depends on practical tasks being finished properly and on time. You will help make sure fixtures, test setups, parts, measurements, scripts, and lab checks are ready when the team needs them.

This role will suit someone who likes the satisfaction of closing things out and keeping momentum going.

You will help diagnose practical problems with equipment, drivers, test scripts, connections, cables, boards, fixtures, and measurement setups.

We do not expect you to know everything already. We do expect you to enjoy working things out. A good technician is someone who can check the obvious things, read documentation, test assumptions, isolate the issue, and explain clearly what they have found.

Where we are doing the same task repeatedly, we want to make it easier, faster, and less error‑prone.

You will help write Python scripts for measurement capture, data logging, instrument control, simple analysis, test routines, and lab workflow improvements.

You do not need to be a software engineer, but you should be comfortable using Python as a practical tool.

You will help maintain inventory, track components, check equipment, manage consumables, keep spares…