Amodo Design
Physicist to Engineer Track
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We are accepting applications from varying seniority levels, from Graduate to Principal Engineer, and will adjust terms accordingly. We are hiring for both our Sheffield and upcoming London office - please see our website for more open roles.
About Amodo
Amodo is a hardware engineering company building the 21st century's most important technologies. Our team of mechanical, electronic, firmware, and software engineers are trusted by world-leading startups, universities, governments and philanthropists to solve pressing technical challenges. See who they are on https://amododesign.com - including MIT, Cambridge, Oxford, Imperial, ARIA and Rand Corp.
We are selective in the projects we take on and proactive in seeking out where our exceptional engineering teams can make the most impact. We believe in differential technology development: deliberately accelerating safety-enhancing technologies to ensure human flourishing. Not every technology is inevitable – rather, the market fails to incentivise key domains. We work in these areas.
What do we do?
At Amodo you will work with a world class team to create some of the most important technologies of our time. We focus on high speed development and real world impact, making sure we’re continually delivering tangible, concrete progress across the board. You will see your designs manufactured and distributed globally, your research inform policy, and you will support multi-million pound projects.
We’re currently focused on four key fields: AI safety, biosecurity, humane tech, and accelerating science (developing the hardware tools that scientific breakthroughs require, but don't yet exist). In addition to client work, we want to bring our inventions into the world as spin-out companies, open-source projects, and products. We're actively hiring people to take charge of making this happen.
- New invention & new research - We design and build new products, equipment, and tools. Invention and rapid iteration are core to our DNA. We use these new inventions and our experience to perform new research and push boundaries.
- More products than powerpoints - Common failure modes of today’s consultancies include risk aversion, theatre for clients, and misrepresentation of what is important in projects. We reject this approach. We’re here to do truth-seeking, progress-optimising engineering, not to make slide decks.
- Work that matters - Unlike many consultancies we also get involved at the pre-product stage. Our experience in industry and biotech puts us in the position to run feasibility studies for new and existing companies. This research-heavy work can include literature reviews, feasibility modelling and market research.
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About you
If you have a strong academic background and want to apply your skills to real engineering problems, this is the track for you. We’ve seen several exceptionally strong physicists transition into excellent engineers at Amodo. They have quickly picked up practical engineering skills on the job and gone on to make significant contributions across our projects.
To give a concrete example, here is one of our engineer’s stories: Sam joined straight after completing his MSc in physics, with limited practical engineering experience. Sam initially worked on modelling in Python, something he was very familiar with, while building up experience in electronics and firmware — learning to solder, writing embedded code from scratch. Finding this as a real strength, he became the firmware resource on several projects — continuing to build these skills and soon took on the line manager role, mentoring another engineer. Over the last 3 years, he’s picked up significant client-facing experience — communicating technical details, collaborating externally — as well as developing strong technical and strategic judgement. Last year, he massively upskilled in AI, hardware, and software stack through a project on securing AI infrastructure, and is now running our AI Verification stream.
Sam’s path reflects how quickly someone with strong fundamentals can become a highly capable, multidisciplinary engineer at Amodo. We’ve created this “Physicists to Engineer” job post to encourage more candidates with this background to apply. While inspired by physicists, this track is open to anyone with similarly strong fundamentals and a desire to build real systems.
Existing competence in these areas would be highly valued, though not at all required:
- A solid first-principles understanding of the world. You know the basics of thermodynamics, kinematics, mechanics, etc.
- Familiarity with electronics, control systems, or physical system modelling
- Interest in or experience in practical making — familiar with a toolbox
- Programming competence (Python, C/C++, TypeScript, React, Postgres)
We work across a wide range of disciplines, with engineers tending to specialise in one. We expect this to happen naturally over time for those joining from a non-engineering background, as you discover and lean into your strengths and interests.
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Above all, we value drive, culture fit, and a track-record of excellence. The top qualities we are looking for from applicants in this track is:
- Excellent critical thinking and reasoning
- A huge desire for learning!
A bit on our culture and what it would look like to work here:
Our values: Truth-seeking, excellent, enthusiastic, kind, humble, and always learning
Our approach: We think before diving in, iterate fast, and focus on the highest-impact 80/20 work. We favour rapid experimentation, quick feedback loops, and sprinting to "something that works" rather than over-planning.
Feedback culture: We practice radical candor, which means being clear and direct while staying kind, and welcoming feedback at every level
No "not my job"-ism: If we see something wrong, we fix it. If your part of a project is going great and another is struggling, don't settle for polishing a chunk of a struggling ship
Socials: Table tennis every lunch, personal project evenings, pub trips, trail running club, and more
Office: Spacious, modern space in central Sheffield, with parking and bike storage. In-house workshop and equipment for our mechanical and electrical work.
Project structure: You will generally be on 1 main project at a time, whilst supporting on 1-2 smaller projects. Team sizes vary from 2-10+ engineers, where most are ~4. Durations largely are within the 2 - 8 months range.
Project variety: We get to work on loads of super varied, technically complex and interesting projects, from drone mounted laser holography for climate-tech to next-gen motors.
Benefits
- Free lunch every day
- Flexible hybrid working
- Flexible working hours
- 35 days holiday (including bank holidays)
- We can pay your professional registration and institution fees
- Relocation assistance may be negotiated
- £300 annual personal project budget with weekly maker evenings (tools, pizza and support provided)
To let you know a bit more about what to expect, our core interview process is as follows.
- 15 minute technical screening interview
- 1 hour technical interview
- 1.5 hour in-person interview
- Offer!
We may occasionally include 1-3 additional stages, including aptitude tests or video calls with one of our founders. Applications are reviewed on a rolling basis.
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