Maker In Residence

Maker-in-Residence — The Deep-Tech Foundry

Raghu University | Visakhapatnam, Andhra Pradesh | Full-Time | On-Site

About Us

Raghu University is a newly formed Deemed to Be University in Visakhapatnam, founded by an entrepreneur who also built a 300-person enterprise SaaS company serving clients across 12 countries.

The Deep-Tech Foundry is where students take ideas from screen to physical product. We’re setting up a prototyping lab with 3D printers, PCB fabrication, soldering stations, CNC machines, and edge AI hardware. The goal: student projects that become startups with real, shippable hardware products.

The Role

A student team has an idea for a water quality monitoring device for aquaculture farms. They can write the software. But who helps them design the enclosure, fabricate the PCB, solder the sensor array, 3D-print the housing, and CNC-mill the mounting bracket? Who turns their screen mockup into something a farmer can hold in their hands?

That’s you.

The Maker-in-Residence runs the prototyping lab inside The Foundry. Your job is to help student teams go from working code to working hardware — the kind you can demo to a customer, pitch to an investor, or ship to a first user. You’re not maintaining equipment for a college lab. You’re building an environment where student hardware startups are born.

What You’ll Do

• Mentor student teams on hardware prototyping end-to-end: concept → CAD → 3D print / CNC → electronics design → PCB fabrication → assembly → working prototype

• Help teams design and fabricate custom PCBs — schematic, layout, fabrication, soldering, testing, iteration

• Run 3D printing operations: help students prepare CAD files, select materials, optimise prints, troubleshoot failures

• Guide CNC operations when needed (we have CNC specialists on campus — you coordinate with them for student projects that require milling)

• Bridge hardware and software: help teams integrate sensors, microcontrollers, and edge AI devices into physical products. A trained AI model is useless until it lives inside something a user can touch.

• Push teams toward startup-grade prototypes, not science fair demos: “This can’t have exposed wires if you’re demoing to a customer. Let’s design a proper enclosure.”

• Manage the prototyping lab: inventory, consumables (filament, solder, components, PCB substrates), equipment maintenance, workspace organisation

• Conduct safety inductions: soldering, 3D printing, ESD protection, workshop discipline

• Participate in weekly standups and monthly Demo Days — help teams present hardware that works, not just slides about hardware

What You Won’t Do

• Sit in a storeroom waiting for requests

• Teach lectures or grade lab exams

• Fill out equipment utilisation reports

• Manage CNC operations (we have dedicated specialists for that)

• Report to any academic department

Who You Are

• You’ve built physical products — not just one-off prototypes, but things that were designed to be used by someone. You have photos or videos to show.

• You’ve designed and fabricated PCBs: schematic to layout to working board. KiCad, Eagle, or Altium.

• You’re comfortable with 3D printing (FDM). Slicing, material selection, troubleshooting.

• You can solder confidently — through-hole and basic SMD

• You understand embedded systems:
Arduino, ESP
32, Raspberry Pi, STM
32, or similar. Firmware, datasheets, serial communication.

• You know what CNC can do and when to use it, even if you’re not operating the machine yourself

• You think in terms of “is this ready to show a customer?” not just “does it work on the bench?”

• You’re patient with beginners but push advanced teams toward production-grade quality

• 2–6 years in hardware prototyping, product engineering, electronics design, or a hardware startup

Nice to…