Electrical Hardware Engineer

About Us

"Seeing Systems is building autonomous drone systems that can perceive, navigate, and act intelligently in complex real-world environments."

We're advancing autonomy through monocular vision, sensor fusion, and robust system design - drones that keep working where traditional systems fail, supported by an agentic stack that reduces operator cognitive load.

Our first product is an FPV-class drone built from the ground up with a modular hardware architecture. If we get the first platform right, we can move fast on everything else: larger airframes, longer range, new payloads, and new mission profiles without rebuilding the stack each time.

We were founded by brothers Matthew and Alexander Le Maitre. Matthew is a former Jane Street engineer and Cambridge CS graduate with a background in autonomous systems research. Alexander is a self-taught hardware engineer who has been building unmanned systems and military-grade electronics.

We're an early-stage, fast-moving team working at the intersection of robotics, perception, and real-world deployment. We iterate weekly. We test in real environments.

The Role

You will design, build, and test the electronics inside our platforms as a core member of our growing hardware team.

That means hands-on electrical engineering work across our aircraft and ground stations: PCB design and layout, board bring-up, power systems, harnessing, sensor integration, and test support. You'll take ownership of defined subsystems and see them through from schematic to a working board on a flying aircraft.

You'll report to our Founding Hardware Engineer and work closely with Alex, our co-founder and hardware lead. This is a role for an engineer early in their career who wants to grow fast: you'll be given real responsibility, real deadlines, and real feedback from the field, with senior engineers beside you at the bench.

Within 30 days: you've assembled, brought up, and debugged boards on one of our platforms and joined a field test. Within 90 days: you've taken a subsystem board from schematic through layout to a validated revision flying on one of our drones.

What You'll Do

• Design PCBs for defined subsystems under the direction of the Founding Hardware Engineer: sensor boards, power distribution, BMS, payload interfaces, and supporting electronics.
• Own board bring-up and debug for your subsystems: soldering, rework, test fixtures, and fault-finding down to component level.
• Support schematic capture and layout across the wider hardware stack, including design reviews, signal and power integrity checks, and documentation.
• Design and build harnessing : connector selection, wiring, and integration of electronics into airframes and ground station hardware.
• Support RF and wireless testing : telemetry, video downlink, and command & control range testing in the field.
• Run test campaigns with our testing lead: prepare aircraft, capture data, log failures, and feed findings back into the next revision.
• Work with manufacturers on quotes, DFM feedback, and incoming inspection as we scale production.
• Use AI tools to accelerate design, firmware, and debug.

What We're Looking For

• Minimum 2 years of hands-on electrical or electronics engineering experience (professional, or a genuinely equivalent portfolio of shipped personal projects).
• PCB design experience in Altium or KiCad - you've taken at least one board from schematic to fabricated, working hardware.
• Solid grounding in analog, digital, and power electronics fundamentals.
• Confident at the bench: soldering (including fine-pitch rework), oscilloscopes, multimeters, and methodical fault-finding.
• Comfortable with the gap between "works on the bench" and "works at range in the field."
• Bias toward shipping.
• Comfortable getting outside and testing in the real world with us.

Nice to Have

• Defence, aerospace, or UAV industry experience.
• Personal experience building and flying drones, robots, or other unmanned systems.
• Embedded work with STM32-class MCUs and protocols such as SPI, I2C, UART, USB, CAN, and Ethernet.
• Exposure to RF/wireless design or antenna integration.
• C/C++ firmware for board bring-up and diagnostics.
• EMI/EMC awareness and pre-compliance testing.
• Early-stage startup experience.

Why Join

• Real ownership of subsystems from day one, with senior engineers invested in your growth.
• Fast iteration: hardware in operators' hands in months, not years.
• Small, high-agency team with a direct line from idea to field test.
• Real deployment pressure, real feedback, real learning.
• A clear path to grow into broader hardware ownership as the team scales.
• Snack of choice stocked in the workshop.