Hardware Engineer, Materra

Hardware Engineering – Mountain View, CA (HQ)

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.

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.

• 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.
• Collaborating and coordinating with the project leadership.

• Industry experience with an MS, or PhD in a STEM field such as Electrical Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Robotics, or Automation.
• Integration of hardware and software 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.
• Ability to thrive in unstructured work environments with rapidly changing requirements.

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

The US base salary range for this full‑time position is $159,000 - $239,000 plus bonus, equity and benefits. Within the range, individual pay is determined by work location and additional factors, including job‑related skills, experience, and relevant education or training.

We are proud to be an equal opportunity workplace and are an affirmative action employer. We are committed to equal employment opportunity regardless of race, color, ancestry, religion, sex, national origin, sexual orientation, age, citizenship, marital status, disability, gender identity or veteran status. We also consider qualified applicants regardless of criminal histories, consistent with legal requirements.