Development Technician

About Tau

Power conversion is the bottleneck between the compute, energy, and mobility industries and the future they're trying to build. Most of the industry is still solving it with decades-old approaches. Tau is fixing that. We're a venture-backed hardtech company in Redwood City, building power conversion technology for data centers, EVs, and energy systems. Several products are already moving into production.

We hire people who own problems end-to-end: power electronics, embedded software, controls, test and validation, mechanical design. We solve from first principles, not legacy playbooks. We're past "promising technology." Customers are buying, volume is coming, and the people who join now set the standard everyone builds on after.

You genuinely like being useful in the moment something is needed, not after. You move between building, fixing, organizing, and troubleshooting without losing the thread on any of them. Context-switching doesn't drain you, it's part of what makes the job interesting.

You take pride in things being right: the torque spec followed, the bench wired cleanly, the inventory actually matching what's on the shelf. You raise the standard for the people around you, and you fix what's broken instead of waiting for it to be someone else's job.

You reprioritize when requirements shift, without losing momentum. Ambiguity about what's next doesn't bother you, and you enjoy finding the highest‑leverage thing and doing it.

Great technical work becomes exceptional when it creates reliable products, enables meaningful new capability, and solves real customer problems.

Understand how your work affects the complete product and the people who build it. Make tradeoffs that improve the whole, not just your direct area of ownership.

Apply the engineering rigor the risk requires. Make timely decisions with the available evidence, communicate uncertainty, and balance technical excellence with program needs.

Deliver quality work on time, improve how the team works, and leave the products, systems, tools, and people around you better than you found them.

The best labs have someone everyone relies on, and almost nobody has to ask for. The bench is built before it's needed. The tool is where you left it. The fixture works the first time because someone thought it through in advance. That's this role.

You're not a support function bolted onto engineering; you're inside it. You'll build prototypes, build the benches and infrastructure engineers work on, keep the lab in a state where anyone can walk in and get to work, and support validation from setup through teardown. When five things need attention at once, that's a normal Tuesday, not a crisis.

No hand-off delays. No waiting on someone else to get the lab ready. You will not be measured by how busy you are, but by how much engineering moves faster because you’re here.

• Build prototype powertrains, subassemblies, fixtures, and test benches from engineering intent
• Support first builds alongside engineers
• Catch assembly issues early and flag practical fixes, not just problems
• Capture build observations that make the next design better

• Prepare hardware for validation: instrumentation, wiring, plumbing, sensors, mechanical integration
• Support commissioning, debugging, and engineering investigations
• Operate lab equipment during development activities

• Keep the lab organized, clean, and safe as a default state, not a cleanup event
• Manage inventory, consumables, fixtures, and prototype materials
• Prepare equipment and work areas ahead of need
• Support purchasing, receiving, and material organization
  
  Find and fix the small workflow frictions that slow engineering down

• Maintain lab equipment and prototype hardware: routine maintenance, inspection, calibration, minor repair
• Catch equipment issues before they interrupt someone's build
• Improve equipment documentation and operating procedures