LUNUL Systems Architect

LUNUL Systems Architect RBW, New York, New York, United States – Information Technology About this position About LUNUL – From the founders of RBW, LUNUL is changing the residential lighting industry. Light shapes how we feel, governing our sleep, our mood, and our health—yet the industry remains profoundly broken, reliant on fragmented vendors and overly complex systems. We are building the first whole‑home lighting ecosystem that combines proprietary controls hardware with the world’s best partner lighting brands (starting with RBW and Arkoslight) to deliver cinematic, natural light that intuitively anticipates daily life. We are a fast‑growing startup on a mission to bring light into harmony with human rhythms. The role You will own the complete technical architecture of a connected consumer electronics platform — from power electronics and embedded firmware through wireless communication, cloud infrastructure, and end‑user applications. This is the most senior engineering hire on the team and the single point of accountability for how every layer of the system works together as one product. We are building a multi‑component hardware platform where the quality of the experience depends entirely on the integration between physical devices, local intelligence, and cloud services. The product surface is wide, the reliability bar is absolute (this is a product people live with daily), and the margin for “it mostly works” is zero. You will define the architecture that makes the system coherent, certifiable, manufacturable, and shippable. What you’ll own Define and enforce the interfaces across every boundary in the stack: MCU firmware analog/power stages, device hub communication (wired and wireless), edge compute cloud services, cloud mobile and web applications, and third‑party integration protocols. Own the system behaving as a unified product, not a loose federation of subsystems. Lead design reviews and make trade‑off decisions across functions. Surface and resolve cross‑domain design issues before they block progress. Technology Selection & Build vs. Buy Drive technology selection decisions in collaboration with product and sourcing leadership. Every component, module, and service choice has cost, timeline, and IP implications — you own the technical rationale and present clear recommendations, not open‑ended options. Know when to roll custom for competitive advantage and when an off‑the‑shelf solution gets us to market faster without compromising the architecture. Hardware–Software Co‑Design Work directly with electrical and mechanical engineers on board‑level architecture decisions — processor selection, power distribution topology, sensor integration, and signal chain design. Ensure that firmware architecture supports OTA updates, graceful fault recovery, field diagnostics, and long‑term maintainability from day one. You don’t need to lay out the PCB, but you need to understand the consequences of every major hardware decision on the software that runs on top of it. Compliance & Certification Architecture Own the regulatory strategy across the full BOM. Structure the design so that UL 8750, FCC Part 15B, NEC Class 2, and any application‑specific safety requirements are met by architecture — not patched in during pre‑certification testing. You are experienced in regulatory submission and know what “designing for certification” actually means at the schematic level. BOM & Supply Chain Risk Management Maintain component‑level visibility into supply chain exposure, single‑source dependencies, lifecycle status, and cost. Flag end‑of‑life and allocation risks before they become production problems. Manage component alternates proactively. Work with manufacturing partners to ensure the BOM is producible, testable, and cost‑effective at target margins. Define the services layer — device provisioning, telemetry ingestion, remote diagnostics, OTA delivery, and any machine‑learning or behavioral intelligence pipelines. Architect the data model and APIs that serve both consumer‑facing applications and any professional/installer tools required for deployment, commissioning, and support. Security & Privacy Architecture Design the security model end‑to‑end: device identity and authentication, encrypted communication at every hop, secure boot chain, key management, and a data architecture that meets both regulatory requirements and user trust expectations. Engineering Operations & Team Development Champion cross‑functional workflow practices and own the DevOps infrastructure — CI/CD pipelines, build systems, test automation, repository structure, and release management. Evaluate, onboard, and technically direct contract and full‑time engineers across firmware, hardware, cloud, and application domains. In the near term, you are the technical continuity anchor as the team scales through specialized contractors. You set the standards, own the architecture decisions, and ensure work from distributed contributors integrates cleanly. As the company grows, you shape the permanent engineering organization. Skills, knowledge and expertise 8+ years of professional engineering experience spanning embedded systems, power electronics or analog hardware, IoT/connected devices, and cloud services. We need someone who has worked across layers, not someone who has spent a decade in one domain. Embedded & Firmware: Deep fluency in MCU‑based systems (ARM Cortex‑M or equivalent), real‑time firmware design, peripheral integration, and hardware abstraction layers. Power & Analog Hardware: Enough working knowledge to make informed architectural decisions about power conversion topologies, thermal management, sensor front‑ends, and mixed‑signal design. IoT Security: Device identity and secure boot, TLS/DTLS, key provisioning, encrypted OTA pipelines. Cloud Infrastructure: Architecture for device fleets: provisioning, telemetry, remote diagnostics, data pipelines, and fleet management (AWS IoT, Azure IoT, or equivalent). Regulatory Certification: Hands‑on experience taking a hardware product through UL, FCC, CE, or international equivalents. Early‑stage company experience: Own a technical decision when there’s no committee to defer to and ship hardware into production with a small team. Cross‑disciplinary communication: Translate between user‑facing product intent and system‑level engineering constraints. Preferred Qualifications and Strong Signals Experience in consumer electronics where industrial design quality, fit‑and‑finish, and reliability are non‑negotiable. Background with sensor fusion architectures (radar, ToF, IMU, environmental). Familiarity with Matter, Thread, Zigbee, Z‑Wave, or other smart home interoperability standards. LED drive electronics, motor control, or other application‑specific power electronics experience. Manufacturing partnerships and DFM/DFT sensibility. Experience with ML at the edge: model optimization, inference on constrained hardware, behavioral pattern recognition. Track record managing cost targets alongside technical performance. Compensation The pay range for this role is: 180,000 – 200,000 USD per year #J-18808-Ljbffr RBW