Lead Electrical Engineer

Founding Electrical Engineering Role at Sabi

You will be the founding electrical engineering hire at Sabi, owning the full electrical architecture of our wearable from schematic through ramp. The first device packs a multi-camera array, a multi-microphone spatial audio array, a high-density EEG sensor array, Wi-Fi/BLE, and intelligent power management onto a flex PCB inside a textile beanie.

You will report to the Head of Hardware, with regular exposure to Sabi's CEO and CTO, and partner closely with the firmware, audio, camera, product design, and reliability leads. You will also work extensively with external engineering teams at our contract manufacturers — the work is outsourced; the accountability is yours.

What You'll Do

• Own the electrical architecture across the platform — compute partitioning, sensor integration, power, RF, and SI/PI.
• Lead schematic and PCB design for flex and rigid-flex multi-island layouts, and own SI/PI sign-off across every revision.
• Architect the power tree — battery management, multi-rail regulation, USB-C charging, and dynamic power budgeting.
• Own RF and wireless electrical design — antenna diversity, body-proximity tuning, and Wi-Fi/BLE coexistence.
• Define and validate every communication bus on the platform — parallel and serial sensor interfaces, audio buses, inter-MCU links.
• Drive part selection, benchmarking, and BOM ownership across MCUs, PMICs, RF SoCs, and the full electrical BOM, with second-source strategy.
• Lead bring-up at the electrical layer — own SI, PI, power, and bus-level debug, and unblock firmware and subsystem leads on the way.
• Drive the design through DFM and qualification gates with our CMs, and ship the product by end of year.
• Build and lead the EE team as we scale from early test batches to production volumes.

What We're Looking For

Must-Haves

• 10+ years designing complex consumer hardware, with at least one shipped product (wearable, audio, mobile, or comparable).
• Deep mixed-signal expertise across MCU systems, sensor AFEs, audio DSPs, image sensor interfaces, RF/wireless, and battery/charging.
• Strong SI/PI discipline with hands-on sign-off on flex and rigid-flex multi-island designs.
• Direct experience architecting and validating multi-MCU communication buses — parallel and serial interfaces, inter-processor links.
• Direct experience driving part selection, BOM ownership, and second-source strategy on a shipped product.
• Track record of leading hardware bring-up and partnering closely with firmware on debug.
• Comfortable owning overseas CM relationships and driving DFM, DFT, and DFA from prototype through volume.

Nice-to-Haves

• EEG, ECoG, or other biopotential systems — especially high-channel-count or dense sensor arrays.
• Integrating low-power AI accelerator silicon into mixed-signal systems.
• Custom ASIC bring-up, silicon co-design, or in-array readout architectures.
• RF design for body-worn antennas and multi-radio coexistence.
• Founding engineer or lead-level experience at an early-stage hardware company.

If you're excited about this role but don't meet every qualification, please apply. As we build, we're hiring for complementary strengths to form a high-impact team.

Compensation & Benefits

• Competitive base salary
• Meaningful equity package
• 401(k) with company matching
• Health insurance
• Flexible PTO

Our Hiring Timeline

• Evaluation completed within 14 days of first interview
• Offer letter dispatched same day as go decision, valid for 10 days
• Start date within 4 weeks of offer acceptance
• All candidate queries responded to within 3 hours during business hours

Sabi is an equal opportunity employer. We welcome people of all backgrounds, experiences, abilities, and perspectives. We do not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, color, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, age, marital status, veteran status, or disability status.