{"id":714,"url":"https://alion.io/job/hark-haptics-firmware-engineer","title":"Embedded Software Engineer, Haptics","company":{"id":764,"name":"Hark","domain":"hark.com","url":"https://alion.io/company/hark","size_band":"1001-5000","is_staffing_agency":false,"employer_type":"direct","is_intermediary":false,"listed_via":null,"ats_vendor":"Greenhouse","truth_index":{"grade":"A","score":95,"open_postings":45,"ghost_share":0,"stale_share":0,"repost_share":0,"time_to_fill_p50_days":113,"computed_at":"2026-10-16T05:45:00Z"}},"role":"Hardware","role_family":"Hardware","seniority":null,"employment_type":"full_time","work_mode":"on_site","remote_scope":null,"remote_scope_basis":null,"remote_working_hours":null,"hiring_geo_confidence":"structured","locations":["San Jose, United States"],"countries":["US"],"hiring_countries":[],"hiring_countries_total":0,"salary":{"min":120000,"max":300000,"currency":"USD","period":"year","gross":null,"usd_annual":300000},"salary_estimate":null,"experience_years_min":null,"visa_sponsorship":false,"relocation_package":false,"has_equity":false,"technologies":[{"name":"AI Agents","optional":false},{"name":"C++","optional":false},{"name":"Multimodal AI","optional":false},{"name":"Python","optional":false},{"name":"RTOS","optional":false}],"status":"live","first_seen_at":"2026-04-30T16:14:42Z","employer_posted_date":"2026-09-30","last_verified_at":"2026-10-16T08:27:39Z","board_verified":true,"closed_at":null,"days_open":168,"trust":{"level":"ok","repost_count":1,"flags":["company_stale"],"days_open":168},"description":"About Hark\nHark is an artificial intelligence company building advanced, personalized intelligence. One that is proactive, multimodal, and capable of interacting with the world through speech, text, vision, and persistent memory.\nWe're pairing that intelligence with next-generation hardware to create a universal interface between humans and machines. While today's AI largely operates through chat boxes and decade-old devices, Hark is focused on what comes next: agentic systems that interact naturally with people and the real world.\nTo get there, we're developing multimodal models and next-generation AI hardware together - designed from the ground up as a single, unified interface for a new era of intelligent systems.\nAbout the Role \nHark is looking for an experience-focused, hands-on embedded engineer to build haptic and motion control system firmware and software that deliver incredible interaction experiences. We care a lot about how things feel, and how the people that use them feel, and we want someone who shares that craft mindset.\nResponsibilities\nWrite real-time firmware in C and C++ that drives motion and haptic systems.\nClose the loop on response time and feel. characterize actuator behavior on the bench and tune controllers until the result is genuinely pleasant to use.\nStand up early hardware, prove out feel and timing in prototype form, and shape the final shipping experience alongside product and industrial design partners.\nRequirements\n5+ years writing firmware for microcontrollers in C and C++.\nDemonstrated hands-on motor or actuator control work that shipped - PID, feed-forward, FOC, observers, and similar techniques.\nComfort on the bench with scopes, logic analyzers, and bus traffic over I²C, SPI, or I²S.\nWorking knowledge of Python or another scripting language for measurement automation and quick data analysis.\nClear written communication - you can explain a tradeoff to a non-firmware teammate without losing them.\nA strong instinct for what distinguishes haptics that feel right.\nBonus Qualifications\nDSP fundamentals: filtering, time-domain shaping, and basic perceptual modeling.\nRTOS experience or comfort with bare-metal scheduling for hard real-time control loops.\nFamiliarity with low-power system design and the measurement habits that come with it.\nPrior work on consumer haptics, audio, or other systems where feel and timing are visible to the user.\nCompensation\nThe US base salary range for this full-time position is between $120,000 - $300,000 annually.\nThe pay offered for this position may vary based on several individual factors, including job-related knowledge, skills, and experience. The total compensation package may also include additional components/benefits depending on the specific role. 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