---
title: 'EE Systems Validation and Automation Engineer at Tacit'
canonical: 'https://feeny.ai/job/ee-systems-validation-and-automation-engineer-tacit-san-francisco-9cdw1f8w71cg'
type: 'job'
last_seen: '2026-09-09'
---

# EE Systems Validation and Automation Engineer at Tacit

- **Company:** Tacit
- **Location:** San Francisco, CA
- **Compensation:** $160k–$210k
- **Employment:** full-time
- **Work type:** onsite
- **Posted:** 2026-08-12
- **Last confirmed live:** 2026-09-09
- **Apply:** https://jobs.ashbyhq.com/tacit/a4b1d982-c1f6-4ba4-9542-09898113ef0b

## Job description

## About Tacit

We are an early-stage, deep tech startup based in San Francisco, developing innovative hardware that rethinks human-computer interaction. We are backed by General Catalyst, Khosla Ventures, and Greylock Partners, with a founding team from Stanford, BrainGate, Oculus, and Tesla. While we can’t reveal too much just yet, our team is tackling cutting-edge engineering challenges to bring revolutionary products to life.

## ABOUT THE ROLE

We are looking for an EE Systems Validation and Automation Engineer to own scalable electrical hardware validation and production test infrastructure from prototype bring-up through manufacturing ramp. The primary focus is board-level electrical characterization, power/signal integrity, system debug, automation, and bench-to-factory correlation.

This is a hands-on role for someone who enjoys turning ambiguous hardware behavior into clear measurements, practical debug plans, and decision-ready recommendations. Strong candidates may come from either electrical systems validation or manufacturing test backgrounds, with growth into the other areas. We do not expect expertise in every listed area.

## WHAT YOU'LL DO

- EE Validation, Characterization, and Debug
- Develop and execute board-level electrical validation plans and characterization procedures for complex PCBA prototypes, engineering builds, and production-intent hardware.
- Characterize electrical performance across voltage rail tolerances, load transients, power efficiency, temperature, configuration, and operating modes.
- Perform systematic hardware debug and root-cause analysis for impairments including power supply ripple/noise, signal integrity jitter, cross-talk, ground bounce, thermal throttling, unexpected reset events, and analog/digital noise coupling.
- Build power budgets, compliance matrices, and concise summaries that connect measured electrical behavior to product-level requirements.
- Manufacturing Test & Production Support
- Develop, validate, and optimize electrical test flows for manufacturing, including boundary scan, functional test, calibration, limits, guard-bands, and pass/fail criteria.
- Support EVT, DVT, PVT, pilot builds, and manufacturing ramp with data-driven yield analysis and issue resolution.
- Partner with contract manufacturers and operations teams to improve test coverage, cycle time, repeatability, and troubleshooting efficiency.
- Create factory-facing test documentation, board debug guides, and high-level summaries for recurring hardware issues.
- Lab Automation, Instrumentation & Data Analysis
- Automate electrical measurements across lab and production test setups using standard board and hardware debugging instrumentation, including digital storage/mixed-signal oscilloscopes (DSO/MSO), high-bandwidth logic analyzers, protocol analyzers (I2C, SPI, PCIe, USB), programmable DC power supplies, electronic loads, digital multimeters (DMMs), function/arbitrary waveform generators, active/differential/current probes, and thermal cameras.
- Build test matrices, collect structured datasets, and analyze trends across units, builds, conditions, and configurations.
- Use statistical methods to set limits, identify outliers, separate measurement artifacts from real failures, and drive yield improvement.
- Correlate bench measurements with automated test results and production data to close the loop between engineering and manufacturing.
- Cross-Functional Product Development
- Work closely with board layout/hardware design, power electronics, firmware, validation, NPI, operations, and manufacturing partners.
- Provide practical feedback on DFM, DFT, test point access, bed-of-nails fixture strategy, and hardware debug visibility.
- Communicate complex electrical findings in clear, actionable summaries for both technical and non-specialist audiences.

## REQUIREMENTS

- Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering, or a related technical field.
- 5+ years of experience in electrical engineering, hardware validation, product test, or manufacturing test engineering; senior-level candidates typically bring deeper ownership across product ramps.
- Strong electrical engineering fundamentals, including power distribution networks (PDN), signal integrity (SI), power integrity (PI), timing margins, voltage regulation, high-speed digital buses, and analog front-end behavior.
- Hands-on experience with hardware debugging equipment such as high-bandwidth oscilloscopes, logic analyzers, protocol analyzers, digital multimeters, programmable power supplies, electronic loads, and active/differential probes.
- Experience with component- and system-level evaluation of electrical blocks such as buck/boost converters, PMICs, LDOs, microcontrollers, FPGAs, high-speed interfaces (PCIe, USB, Ethernet, MIPI), and low-speed buses (I2C, SPI, UART, CAN).
- Experience developing automated tests or lab scripts, preferably in Python or a similar language (e.g., PyVISA, SCPI), for repeatable electrical measurement and data capture.
- Ability to define test matrices, pass/fail limits, compliance matrices, and concise validation reports.
- Experience debugging complex PCBAs and hardware systems from prototype bring-up through production-intent builds and manufacturing ramp.
- Comfortable working cross-functionally in a fast-paced hardware development environment.

## STRONG CANDIDATES MAY HAVE

- Familiarity with signal integrity test methods, bus compliance testing, power rail impedance measurements, or loop-stability analysis.
- Experience with high-volume manufacturing test, ICT (In-Circuit Testing), JTAG/boundary scan, test fixture bring-up, yield dashboards, or production data pipelines.
- Experience supporting EVT, DVT, PVT, pilot builds, and mass production with contract manufacturers or factory teams.
- Experience evaluating power supply transient response, ripple rejection, clock jitter, timing setup/hold margins, and thermal dissipation.
- Experience with DFM/DFT reviews for electrical hardware, including test point layout, decoupling strategies, grounding, and fixture repeatability.
- Ability to debug across electrical, analog, digital, mixed-signal, firmware, and test software boundaries.

## SUCCESS IN THIS ROLE LOOKS LIKE

- Product electrical performance and power delivery are thoroughly characterized and well understood.
- Validation plans provide comprehensive coverage of hardware requirements and technical risks.
- Critical electrical and board-level issues are identified early and resolved through data-driven root-cause analysis.
- Automated validation infrastructure accelerates learning and improves engineering efficiency.
- Measurement results directly influence hardware architecture, component selection, layout decisions, and firmware configuration
- Validation data correlates strongly with real-world product performance.
- Prototype learnings translate into more robust board designs and faster development cycles.

## BENEFITS

- Competitive equity package
- Comprehensive medical, dental, and vision insurance
- Company size: 30-50 people
- Unlimited PTO
- Visa sponsorship
- 3% 401k matching

## About Tacit

## Company Overview
- **One-liner**: An early-stage, stealth deep tech startup based in San Francisco, developing innovative hardware that rethinks human-computer interaction, with a focus on neurotechnology and Edge AI.
- **Entity Type**: Private (Early Stage, Stealth)
- **Headquarters**: San Francisco, California, United States
- **Founded**: Not publicly available
- **Founders**: Not publicly available (founding team includes alumni from Stanford, BrainGate, Oculus, and Tesla)

## Core Business
- Primary industry/industries: Neurotechnology, Edge AI Hardware, Human-Computer Interaction
- Target customers: B2B/B2C in consumer electronics, wearable tech, neurotech, and AR/VR sectors
- Mission or purpose statement: To develop revolutionary hardware that redefines how humans interact with computers, leveraging deep tech innovations in neural interfaces and on-device artificial intelligence.

## Products & Services
- **Product/Platform**: A next-generation neurotech hardware platform (stealth mode – specific product details are not publicly disclosed) that integrates production-grade on-device intelligence, realtime sensor processing, and NPU/DSP-accelerated inference.

## Market Standing
- **Valuation/Market Cap**: Not disclosed (stealth startup)
- **Key Metric**: Total Funding – Backed by top-tier venture firms (General Catalyst, Khosla Ventures, Greylock Partners) but specific funding amounts are not publicly available.
- **Notable Investors/Partners**: General Catalyst, Khosla Ventures, Greylock Partners
- **Growth Signals**: Company size estimated at 20–30 employees ([bebee.com](https://bebee.com/us/companies/tacit)), rapidly hiring across firmware, AI, and hardware engineering roles; founding team from elite institutions (Stanford, BrainGate, Oculus, Tesla), indicating strong talent acquisition and ambitious R&D trajectory.

## Competitive Advantages
- Deep tech moat: proprietary neurotech hardware combined with custom Edge AI runtimes and NPU/DSP optimization.
- World-class founding team with proven expertise in neural interfaces (BrainGate), consumer VR (Oculus), and electric vehicle engineering (Tesla).
- Backing from a powerhouse coalition of venture firms (General Catalyst, Khosla, Greylock), providing significant resources for long-term, capital-intensive hardware development.
- Stealth positioning allows focused R&D without competitive pressure, enabling breakthrough innovation.

## Strategic Focus
- Shipping production-grade edge intelligence: developing realtime sensor-to-inference pipelines for neurotech hardware.
- Power optimization: deeply optimizing end-to-end energy per inference for battery-powered consumer devices.
- Scaling engineering team: actively recruiting Senior Firmware Engineers, AI Product Engineers, and other hardware/software roles to accelerate productization.
- Building a full-stack neurotech platform from sensor acquisition through model deployment and user experience.

## Why Work Here
- **Culture**: Early-stage, high-autonomy environment; team members own critical parts of the embedded AI stack and shape the product’s intelligence.
- **Remote/Hybrid/Office**: On-site in San Francisco (based on all job postings specifying "Location Type: On-site" and "San Francisco").
- **Compensation**: $150,000 – $200,000 base salary plus competitive equity package, 3% 401k matching, comprehensive medical/dental/vision, and unlimited PTO.
- **Engineering Culture**: Hands-on work with cutting-edge hardware (NPUs, DSPs, custom sensors) and production AI; strong cross-functional collaboration between firmware, ML, electrical, and product teams.
- **Visa Sponsorship**: Offered for qualified candidates.
- **Perks**: Full medical/dental/vision coverage, 401(k) with company match, unlimited PTO, and the opportunity to ship revolutionary neurotech hardware to real users.

## Sources
1. [Tacit Careers Page (Ashby)](https://jobs.ashbyhq.com/tacit/62712a3e-e5b8-4884-9450-aae4d2dfa45c)
2. [BeBee - Tacit Company Profile](https://bebee.com/us/companies/tacit)
3. [Jobright.ai - Tacit AI Product Engineer Posting](https://jobright.ai/jobs/info/6971dbb2b707bf728a4b654d)
4. [Indeed.com - Tacit Careers and Employment](https://www.indeed.com/cmp/Tacit)
5. [Tacit AI Official Website (Tacit AI)](https://tacitx.ai/about/) – *(Note: this domain appears distinct from tacit.ai; included as potential affiliate/likely same company under different brand)*
6. [Tacit Official Website](https://tacit.ai/)

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