Skip to main content

Human Archive

Head of Engineering

San Francisco, California, United States

Location
San Francisco, California, United States
Work
Not stated
Employment
Full-time
Level
Director
Function
Engineering
Pay
$150K – $200K a year
Posted
6 months ago

About the role

About Human Archive

Human Archive is a research lab focused on modeling human embodied intelligence.

Humans are the most sophisticated biological systems we have ever observed, yet we still do not fully understand ourselves. Research into human physical intelligence — including the human hand, proprioception, and vision — remains largely unsolved. Our mission is to recover human embodied intelligence as a learned model. To achieve this, we build custom hardware products, deploy them globally at scale, and publish research. Today, our data is used for robotics and world modeling, but the broader opportunity is advancing scientific research into intelligence itself.

Founded by Stanford and UC Berkeley researchers, we are lean, deeply technical, and operate at extreme speed, taking on unglamorous and conventionally impossible problems that directly unlock step-function gains in model capability.

The deployment of capable humanoids at scale will permanently redefine human labor. Undesirable physical work will disappear, and human effort will shift toward a new era of abundant creativity.

We are building the infrastructure to accelerate that transition by assembling the Human Archive mafia. You will own meaningful systems from day one and see your work directly impact model capabilities. This is a once-in-a-generation inflection point. If you want to help reshape physical labor and work on problems that matter at civilizational scale, join us.

About the Role

This is a full-stack hardware engineering role spanning mechanical, electrical, firmware, embedded systems, and manufacturing. The engineer in this role will own integration across all layers of the system and drive manufacturing execution in China — from vendor selection through production ramp.

You will work directly on wearable sensing systems involving synchronized cameras, motion capture, tactile sensing, embedded compute, and power systems operating under real-world deployment constraints.

Mandarin fluency and established relationships in Chinese manufacturing are required. A background in mechatronics, systems engineering, robotics, or embedded hardware is strongly preferred.

Open to exceptional new graduates and early-career engineers (2023–2026).

What You’ll Do

  • Lead hardware engineering and manufacturing execution for Human Archive’s multimodal wearable systems
  • Own integration across power systems, sensor synchronization, embedded compute, thermal systems, and mechanical packaging
  • Debug failures across electrical, firmware, thermal, RF, and mechanical layers under real-world deployment conditions
  • Review CAD, schematics, PCB layouts, and embedded firmware behavior and drive corrective action with engineering justification
  • Prototype, wear-test, deploy, and iterate rapidly on wearable sensing systems used in large-scale global operations
  • Work directly with stereo depth cameras, IMUs, motion capture systems, tactile hardware, and embedded sensing platforms
  • Coordinate across hardware, software, operations, and data teams to translate product requirements into manufacturable systems under aggressive timelines

What We’re Looking For

  • Strong background in mechatronics, robotics, systems engineering, embedded systems, or equivalent hands-on experience
  • Experience building battery-powered electronics, embedded Linux systems, sensor integration systems, or wearable hardware
  • Ability to debug hardware and embedded systems using serial tools, oscilloscopes, logic analyzers, and low-level debugging workflows
  • Strong mechanical judgment with the ability to review CAD and identify structural, ergonomic, thermal, or reliability issues
  • Ability to move quickly in ambiguous, high-ownership environments with aggressive timelines
  • Strong communication skills and ability to coordinate across engineering, manufacturing, and operations teams
  • Comfortable operating as both an individual contributor and technical leader in a fast-moving startup environment

Strong Plus

  • Mandarin fluency and active manufacturing relationships in China (Shenzhen, Dongguan, or equivalent ecosystems)
  • Experience working with motion capture systems, IMUs, stereo depth cameras, tactile sensing, or wearable robotics
  • Experience bringing hardware products from prototype through mass production deployment
  • Experience working on robotics, embodied AI, multimodal sensing, or large-scale wearable systems

Location

Globally deployed. Primary operational presence in China (Shenzhen / Dongguan) and San Francisco.

Source

Posted by Human Archive on their own hiring page, jobs.ashbyhq.com. OptiTalent shows it as published, read 07 Nov 2026 01:24 UTC; the original is the reference.

View the original ad ↗

More at Human Archive

  • Human Archive · San Francisco, California, United States

    Full-time$25.00 – $50.00 an hourScience & research

    We’re running a research study in our SF office and need someone to manage the day to day operations behind it. It is one of the best opportunities to get hands-on experience at frontier of physical AI/robotics. You will work directly with our research ends and cofounders and…

  • Human Archive · India

    On-siteFull-timeDirectorEngineering

    We operate a fleet of camera and sensor devices in the field at scale. They generate large volumes of recordings on removable media, and every recording has to reach cloud storage intact, correctly identified, and traceable back to the exact device, card and operator that…

  • Human Archive · India

    On-siteFull-timeLead / staffOperations

    We build and run the software platform behind a large-scale data collection and annotation operation: the system of record that tracks what was collected and by whom, the tooling annotators work in, the ingest integrations that move data from physical media into cloud storage,…

  • Human Archive · India

    Full-timeManager₹400K – ₹700K a yearOperations

    As an Operations Manager, you own the deployment. From the moment equipment leaves our storage point to the moment the day's data is verified, it is yours to run: a team of five to six operators, a live site, and a set of problems nobody can solve for you from a desk.