Lead Engineer – Hardware
Summary
Hands-on lead engineer owning the hardware architecture, embedded firmware and power electronics of electromechanical test & measurement instruments, taking products from concept to pilot production while mentoring a small team. Core stack: KiCad, bare-metal C on STM32/ESP32-class MCUs, BLDC/PMSM motor control and buck/boost/flyback converters; on-site in rural Tamil Nadu.
Pilabz
Electromechanical Systems is India’s first native electro mechanical product
team. We build world-class electronic Test & Measurement (T&M)
instruments directly from rural India, combining precision engineering (KiCad,
bare-metal C), mobile/cloud connectivity and local manufacturing to show that
high-quality innovation can thrive outside urban centers.
As Lead
Engineer – Hardware, you will own the hardware architecture of our electro mechanical products from concept to pilot production, with full
accountability for the firmware and power subsystems. This is a hands-on lead
role: you will design, build and debug alongside a small team, set engineering
standards, and mentor junior engineers and interns as the team grows. You will
report directly to the CEO and work closely with product, mechanical and
manufacturing teams.
• Own end-to-end hardware architecture for an electro mechanical product, from concept sketches to pilot production.
• Make fast, well-reasoned build-vs-buy and make-vs-outsource calls on components, modules and subsystems within tight budget and timeline limits.
• Design and develop embedded firmware for motor control, sensor fusion and system-level control loops on resource-constrained micro controllers.
• Build and debug prototypes yourself: board bring-up, soldering and rework, bench debug. There is no dedicated lab technician.
• Work directly with contract manufacturers and component vendors for prototyping and early production runs.
• Mentor junior engineers and interns while staying hands-on yourself.
Requirements
• Experience: 6–10 years of hands-on hardware and firmware engineering, covering both embedded firmware and power electronics (not one or the other).
• Shipped a physical consumer or industrial product, not only lab prototypes.
• Selecting and qualifying contract manufacturers for low-to-mid volume production.
• Battery management systems (BMS) for portable or EV-adjacent products.
• Regulatory and compliance preparation (EMI/EMC, safety certification) for a first product launch.
• Safety-critical or industrial-grade design; exposure to IEC 61508 or ISO 26262.
• Simulation tools: LTspice, PSIM, MATLAB/Simulink.
• Renewable energy, EV charging or industrial power systems.
• Precision analog or measurement instrumentation (ADC front-ends, calibration).
• Wireless connectivity firmware (BLE, Wi-Fi) for mobile/cloud-connected devices.
Email your portfolio along with your
resume to hr@pilabz.in. Applications without a portfolio will not be
shortlisted. The portfolio must show your own contribution, not team or
organizational output, and must include:
1. End-to-end project: One product or board taken from
concept to prototype to working hardware, with a short write-up of your role,
key design decisions and trade-offs.
2. Firmware sample: Code you personally wrote (GitHub link
or attached snippet), preferably motor control, sensor interfacing or a
real-time control loop, with a README or comments explaining the architecture.
- Schematic and PCB files (redacted
excerpts are fine) of a power converter or motor drive you designed.
- Bench test data (oscilloscope
captures, efficiency curves) from a supply or converter you built and
validated.
4. Debug case study: One hardware or firmware bug you
diagnosed and fixed, ideally at the firmware–hardware boundary (for example a
timing issue, power-sequencing bug or EMI problem).
5. Physical hardware: Photos or videos of hardware you
built: bench prototypes, working demos or production units.
Optional but
valued: evidence of
production experience, such as DFM changes you drove, yield issues you resolved
or contract-manufacturer interactions you lead.
• High ownership, low ego: you do whatever the product needs,
including work a Lead title at a large company would not.
• Pragmatic: you know when “good enough” beats
“perfect” and you ship on startup cadence, not textbook process.
• Comfortable with ambiguity: you work with incomplete specs and
shifting requirements, and stay resourceful under budget and timeline
constraints.
• First-principles thinker: you solve problems from fundamental
truths rather than existing templates.
• Clear communicator: you translate between firmware, power,
mechanical and business priorities.
• Self-starter and mentor: you can establish standards from
scratch, and you are willing to coach interns and junior engineers from the
region, many with limited formal training.
• Fast learner: you thrive in a fast-paced environment
and believe great engineering should be affordable.
You will be one
of a handful of hardware engineers, with no dedicated support functions
initially.
Benefits
Benefits & Culture at Pilabz:
Purpose-Driven Environment: We are building an engineering culture from scratch in Govindaperi a village near Tenkasi proving that PhD-level R&D does not require a metro address. Your presence and mentorship directly shape what that culture becomes.
Continuous Learning: Access to Zoho’s R&D resources, internal hardware prototyping facilities, and a team that treats every failed simulation run as a research question worth solving properly.
Location: This role is based on-site at our facility. In Govindaperi, near Tenkasi, Tamil Nadu.