Staff Sensor Lead, Emerging Technologies

Staff Sensor Lead, Emerging Technologies

Hybrid - San Francisco, California

Our mission at Oura is to empower every person to own their inner potential. Our award-winning products help our global community gain a deeper knowledge of their readiness, activity, and sleep quality by using their Oura Ring and its connected app. We've helped millions of people understand and improve their health by providing daily insights and practical steps to inspire healthy lifestyles.

Empowering the world starts with living our values and empowering our team. As a quickly growing company focused on helping people live healthier and happier lives, we ensure that our team members have what they need to do their best work — both in and out of the office.

As a Staff Sensor Lead, Emerging Technologies at ŌURA, you will drive architecture, specification, development, and characterization of optical, temp, motion and inertial sensing systems for next-generation wearable products. You will partner closely with hardware, firmware, algorithm, and product teams to design robust motion sensing pipelines that unlock high-fidelity metrics, improve activity and gesture detection, and enhance user experiences.

This role blends deep technical execution with cross-functional influence, impacting ŌURA's sensor roadmap, performance outcomes, and long-term platform strategy. You will be reporting into the Director, Hardware Sensing and reporting out of our San Francisco office.

What you will do:

Sensor Architecture & Design

• Prototype, incubate, define and evolve motion and inertial sensor architectures (optical, accelerometers, gyroscopes, IMUs, temp sensor etc.) for novel new low-power wearable platforms.
• Translate sensing requirements into robust hardware specifications aligned with product goals.

Development & Integration

• Lead integration of all sensors from optical, temp, motion and related sensors into ŌURA's new hardware, ensuring calibration, noise management, power efficiency, and high-quality signal acquisition.
• Design and execute sensor characterization and validation tests from prototype through production.

Cross-Functional Leadership

• Collaborate with firmware, algorithm, and systems teams to ensure accurate motion data feeds into Oura's signal processing and machine learning stacks.
• Contribute to product planning and sensor roadmap discussions based on performance feedback and technology advances.

Testing & Validation

• Develop and maintain rigorous test methodologies, metrics, and automation frameworks for motion sensor performance evaluation.
• Analyze sensor data to diagnose edge cases and performance bottlenecks and define corrective actions.

Supplier & Partner Coordination

• Engage with sensor vendors, partners, and manufacturers to assess technology options, secure components, and optimize integration into mass-production workflows.

Documentation & Communication

• Produce clear technical documentation of sensor designs, trade studies, test plans, and performance metrics.
• Present findings and recommendations to engineering leadership and cross-disciplinary stakeholders.

We would love to consider you for this role if you have:

• 10+ years of experience in motion sensing, inertial measurement systems, or similar sensor design and integration roles.
• Experience with optical, temperature, microphone, accelerometers, gyroscopes, MEMS sensors, and low-power embedded sensor interfaces. Strong background in sensor characterization, signal quality analysis, embedded systems, and data integrity practices. Excellent analytical problem-solving and written/verbal communication skills.
• Collaborative mindset with experience working across hardware, firmware, and analytics teams.

Benefits

At ŌURA, we care about you and your well-being. Everyone here at ŌURA has a ring of their own and we are continually looking to improve employee health.

What we offer:

• Competitive salary and equity packages
• Health, dental, vision insurance, and mental health resources
• An Oura Ring of your own plus employee discounts for friends & family
• 20 days of paid time off plus 13 paid holidays plus 8 days of flexible wellness time off
• Paid sick leave and parental leave

Oura takes a market-based…