Hardware Engineer Precision Instrumentation
Astera Institute is an active nonprofit research institute and foundation that operates in-house neuroscience-informed AI research and funds, operates, and supports open-science programs and public goods.
About Astera Institute
Astera operates three divisions: Neuro-AI, Radial life-sciences research, and its Foundation. Its AI work pursues neuroscience-informed approaches to artificial general intelligence, while its foundation and Radial activities support open scientific infrastructure, datasets, research programs, and residencies.
Skills
Candidate Availability
Required and preferred rules are kept separate and reflect the wording in the original posting.
About the Role
You will design, fabricate, integrate, and iterate on precision hardware for neuroscience experiments. You will build mechanical systems, custom microscope and optical components, laboratory instrumentation, robotics, and electronics and control hardware. You will also help establish the tooling, workflows, and fabrication capabilities of the design and prototyping facility.
Requirements
- Bachelor's degree or equivalent experience in mechanical, electrical, biomedical engineering, physics, or a related field
- Experience building precision hardware in a high-precision industry
- Experience designing, building, and maintaining hardware used for real work
- Mechanical design and fabrication expertise with practical electronics or optics ability
- Experience owning complex instruments from concept through reliable operation
- Experience making design tradeoffs across performance, manufacturability, cost, and timeline
- Experience equipping and running a workshop, makerspace, or prototyping facility
- CAD/CAM proficiency, machining, and 3D printing
- Experience with PCB layout, embedded systems, and sensor or actuator integration
- Experience integrating hardware with DAQ, TTL synchronization, and serial or SPI protocols
Responsibilities
- Design precision mechanical systems for experiments
- Build components for custom microscopes and optical systems
- Design and iterate custom laboratory instrumentation and experimental robotics
- Develop electronics and control hardware for mechanical systems and data acquisition
- Build the design and prototyping facility's tooling, workflows, and fabrication capabilities