Lead Audio Engineer in Palo Alto

Job Description You will own the wearable audio system end-to-end, from distributed microphone arrays and DSP to wake-word, beamforming, spatial audio, and open-ear output. The first device includes multi-mic capture, on-device processing (AEC, noise suppression, DOA, wake-word), and Class-D–driven speakers. Audio is central to the product experience. What You’ll Do Own the audio system end-to-end — microphone selection and placement, audio acquisition architecture, DSP pipeline, wake-word, beamforming, AEC, noise suppression, spatial output. Drive part selection and benchmarking across the audio chain — microphones, audio DSPs and AFEs, Class-D amplifiers, speakers — with second-source planning. Specify the electrical and acoustic interfaces audio needs from the rest of the system, and partner with the EE lead on layout and the FW lead on runtime hosting. Drive the on-device DSP that runs in real time alongside the rest of the platform — algorithm design, latency and CPU budgets, training data, metric tuning. Validate the spatial mic array for direction-of-arrival accuracy, speech enhancement in noise, and wind robustness across realistic wear scenarios. Define the wake-word strategy — keyword choice, training data, on-device engine, false-accept and missed-trigger budgets — and own the experience users hit when they say it. Partners with the product design lead on acoustic detailing — microphone ports, mesh, wind shielding, housings, leakage. Partner with the reliability lead on component-level reliability for the audio chain — transducer durability, sweat and humidity resistance, AFE and amplifier qualification. Ship the product by the end of year and help build the audio team and our cloud-side voice processing capability. Responsibilities 10+ years of audio engineering, with at least one shipped consumer product where you owned a multi-microphone voice system end-to-end. Deep expertise in voice DSP — beamforming, AEC, noise suppression, direction-of-arrival on multi-microphone arrays. Proven track record shipping wake-word or always-on voice activation at consumer scale, including data collection and metric tuning. Experience designing real-time DSP pipelines on constrained MCUs — not just plugin-based desktop work. Strong acoustic engineering instincts — microphone selection, port design, housing acoustics, wind, occlusion, body coupling. Direct experience driving audio component selection and benchmarking with second-source planning. Skills Deploying audio DSP, wake-word, or speech models on dedicated low-power AI accelerators. Experience with leading on-device wake-word engines. Multi-channel audio DSPs and Class-D amplifier design. Spatial audio rendering — HRTF, panning, head-tracked binaural. Cloud STT pipelines and end-to-end voice UX latency budgets. Submit resume to View email address on click.appcast.io Mario Ruiz View phone number on click.appcast.io Type: Fulltime Location: Palo Alto, CA (Hybrid Schedule) Salary Range: $300k - $400k/y (DOE) #J-18808-Ljbffr Energy Jobline ZR