--- title: 'Engineering Technician at Specter' canonical: 'https://feeny.ai/job/engineering-technician-specter-san-francisco-pcmfgh787f4k' type: 'job' last_seen: '2026-09-07' --- # Engineering Technician at Specter - **Company:** Specter - **Location:** San Francisco, CA - **Employment:** contract - **Work type:** onsite - **Posted:** 2026-07-14 - **Last confirmed live:** 2026-09-07 - **Apply:** https://jobs.ashbyhq.com/specter/48b2bade-e471-4ba1-98f2-b32c0bd35c6c ## Job description Company Background Specter's mission is to help automate the physical world. Today, we build video sensors with state-of-the-art AI agents that answer any question, anywhere in their environments. Our systems can automatically detect and reason about any physical activity captured on camera, from security incidents (e.g. perimeter intrusion, theft, LPR), to safety monitoring (e.g. PPE detection, injured people), to operational efficiency (e.g. material tracking, congestion monitoring). We offer both long range wireless (1km range) and wired sensor variants to suit any deployment. Our co-founders Xerxes and Philip are passionate about empowering our partners in the fast approaching world of physical AI and robotics. We are a small, fast growing team who hail from Anduril, Tesla, Uber, and the U.S. Special Forces. ## The Role If you love making real things, this role is built for you. You’ll work with your hands and your head in equal measure: fabricating a bracket to mount hardware on the roof one day, wiring up a test rig the next, then working out how to get a pile of loose electronics enclosed, powered, and running outdoors. Early on the jobs come well-scoped. As you find your feet, more of the “here’s the goal, figure out how” problems become yours to solve. Responsibilities: - Builds and assembly: Put together the computers, server racks, and test rigs the whole team runs on, built well enough that people trust them. Catch the problems that look small now before they cost someone a day later. - Cabling and networking: Run and terminate the network and power cabling and install the switches the lab depends on, then leave it clean and labeled enough that the next person never has to guess. - Field install support: Get hardware mounted and weatherproofed at our test sites, including the roof, so it keeps working through months of real weather. - Lab upkeep: Keep the lab organized, stocked, and safe, and catch the small problems, a hot server or a strained cable, before they take something down. - Hands-on prototyping: Help turn rough ideas into working hardware: breadboarding, crimping harnesses, fabrication, and 3D printing. Qualifications: - Handy end to end: Give you a job like running cable from the rack to the roof, and you can plan the route, put together the bill of materials, and finish it as a clean, tidy install. - Mounting, drilling, fastening, and cable routing come naturally. - Fabrication and shop skills: You can make and modify parts: 3D printing, basic machining, welding, or confident work with hand and power tools. - Basic computer skills: You can build or set up a computer and find your way around Linux, or you’re keen to learn it fast. - Some electronics exposure: Any hands-on experience with breadboarding, soldering, or crimping harnesses. - Careful and organized: You handle expensive equipment with care, label your work, and leave things tidy for the next person. - Eager to learn: You ask good questions, pick things up quickly, and want to grow into a broader hardware role. - Comfortable working with your hands: including outdoors and at height, done safely. ## Nice to Have - Networking basics: Cabling, switches, and IP addressing. - RF or antennas: Any exposure to RF hardware or antenna work. - Electronics: Setting up PSUs, loads, or solar panels, or reading a basic schematic. - Relevant coursework or projects: A degree, trade training, or a portfolio of personal builds. ## About Specter ## Company Overview - **One-liner**: Specter builds and deploys long-range wireless sensing networks with AI-powered real-time alerts and semantic search, creating the perception layer for the physical world. - **Entity Type**: Private (funding stage not publicly disclosed) - **Headquarters**: Not publicly available (likely US based on website language and job postings) - **Founded**: Not publicly available - **Founders**: Not publicly available ## Core Business - Primary industries: Physical security, critical infrastructure monitoring, industrial IoT, real-time situational awareness - Target customers: Enterprise and government – including energy companies, data centers, construction firms, ports, stadiums, industrial facilities, and campuses - Mission statement: "Creating a Software Defined Physical World" – providing instant awareness through real-time alerts, semantic search, and a map-based view of every event ## Products & Services - **Specter Platform**: A SaaS-based physical intelligence platform that ingests data from long-range wireless sensors (video, thermal, acoustic) and applies general AI (natural language alerts) to detect events such as unauthorized access, safety hazards, equipment anomalies, fires, spills, and perimeter breaches. Features include semantic search, live and historical event detection, and complete situational awareness dashboards. - **Long-Range Wireless Sensing Network**: Proprietary hardware and software for rugged, wide-area coverage without trenching – deployed across refineries, deserts, offshore platforms, construction sites, and other harsh environments. ## Market Standing - **Valuation/Market Cap**: Not disclosed - **Key Metric**: Annual revenue not publicly available; company is actively hiring (Software Engineer – Systems listing) and has a live product across multiple industry verticals. - **Notable Investors/Partners**: Not publicly available - **Growth Signals**: Recent website updates as of June 2026; expanding to new use cases (energy, data centers, construction, ports, stadiums); job openings indicate scaling engineering team. ## Competitive Advantages - **Long-range wireless sensing** that eliminates blind spots without trenching or on-site personnel – a differentiator for remote and harsh environments. - **General AI with natural language alerts** – users set and query alerts in plain English, lowering the barrier for security and operations teams. - **Multimodal sensing** (video, thermal, acoustic) combined with real-time analytics for high-fidelity event detection (e.g., PPE compliance, spills, equipment theft, person-down incidents). - Focus on **critical infrastructure** where downtime or security gaps carry high stakes, creating deep vertical-specific moats. ## Strategic Focus - Expanding horizontal deployment across energy, data centers, construction, logistics, and campus security. - Deepening AI capabilities through real-time semantic search and event detection to replace traditional CCTV monitoring. - Building a “software-defined physical world” that unifies disparate sensors into a single intelligent layer. ## Why Work Here - Opportunity to work on cutting-edge AI + IoT systems that monitor real-world infrastructure at scale. - Engineering culture likely emphasizes distributed systems, computer vision, edge computing, and high-reliability software (based on job description for Software Engineer – Systems). - Fast-paced startup environment with a clear product-market fit across multiple verticals. - Remote/hybrid policy not explicitly stated; job posting does not specify location, but likely offers flexibility. ## Sources 1. [specter.co](https://specter.co/) 2. [specter.co/product](https://specter.co/product) 3. [specter.co/industries](https://specter.co/industries) 4. [specter.co/features](https://specter.co/features) 5. [jobs.ashbyhq.com - Software Engineer – Systems](https://jobs.ashbyhq.com/specter/fe26a690-7934-46f4-bce2-8d8c5495a0dc) ## Other roles at Specter - [Wireless Software Engineer](https://feeny.ai/job/wireless-software-engineer-specter-san-francisco-zvjchm89fzv0) — San Francisco, CA - [Software Engineer - Applied AI](https://feeny.ai/job/software-engineer-applied-ai-specter-san-francisco-p7er9310dx06) — San Francisco, CA - [Senior Antenna Engineer](https://feeny.ai/job/senior-antenna-engineer-specter-san-francisco-xea2760wvrkw) — San Francisco, CA - [Software Engineer — Fleet](https://feeny.ai/job/software-engineer-fleet-specter-san-francisco-5tm2vh5drfnf) — San Francisco, CA - [Platform Site Reliability Engineer](https://feeny.ai/job/platform-site-reliability-engineer-specter-san-francisco-c9mhsvjd32qq) — San Francisco, CA - [Recruiting Coordinator](https://feeny.ai/job/recruiting-coordinator-specter-san-francisco-y4c4fq3ctm2y) — San Francisco, CA - [Founding Deployment Strategist](https://feeny.ai/job/founding-deployment-strategist-specter-san-francisco-81ba238x3y8m) — San Francisco, CA - [Senior Accounting Manager](https://feeny.ai/job/senior-accounting-manager-specter-san-francisco-c560c7hymx09) — San Francisco, CA - [Hardware Test Engineer](https://feeny.ai/job/hardware-test-engineer-specter-san-francisco-0tgzpmm9kqx3) — San Francisco, CA - [Hardware Test Lead](https://feeny.ai/job/hardware-test-lead-specter-san-francisco-m6ynp7p1kq82) — San Francisco, CA