Seeing Systems (YC W26)
Senior Hardware Engineer
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About Us
Seeing Systems is building autonomous drone systems that can perceive, navigate, and act intelligently in complex real-world environments.
We’re advancing autonomy through monocular vision, sensor fusion, and robust system design — drones that keep working where traditional systems fail, supported by an agentic stack that reduces operator cognitive load.
Our first product is an FPV-class drone built from the ground up with a modular hardware architecture. If we get the first platform right, we can move fast on everything else: larger airframes, longer range, new payloads, and new mission profiles without rebuilding the stack each time.
We were founded by brothers Matthew and Alexander Le Maitre. Matthew is a former Jane Street engineer and Cambridge CS graduate with a background in autonomous systems research. Alexander is a self-taught hardware engineer who has been building unmanned systems and military-grade electronics.
We’re an early-stage, fast-moving team working at the intersection of robotics, perception, and real-world deployment. We iterate weekly. We test in real environments.
The Role
You will own hardware at Seeing Systems from first schematic to flying systems in the field.
That means designing the electronics and the physical systems around them: flight controllers, motor drivers, RF circuits, power systems, sensor boards, payload boards, frames, enclosures, mounts, packaging, and ground station hardware. You’ll take ownership of the whole stack and turn blank-schematic ideas into reliable products that work outside the lab.
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This is a founding hardware role. You won’t just design boards — you’ll own them through bring-up, flight testing, iteration, and production. You’ll help define the modular architecture we scale from, so every new platform builds on the last instead of starting over.
You’ll work directly with Alex on hardware architecture, set technical direction, and grow into the leader of the hardware team as we scale.
Within 30 days: you’ve brought up your first custom board and flown it on one of our drones.
Within 90 days: you will have completed the first production-ready revision of our modular flight controller and integrated it into our alpha airframe
What You'll Do
- Design PCBs end-to-end: flight controllers, motor drivers, RF and antenna boards, power distribution, BMS, sensor boards, and payload boards.
- Own schematic capture, multi-layer layout, bring-up, debug, signal and power integrity, and EMI/EMC.
- Build the physical system around the electronics: enclosures, mounts, thermal solutions, airframe integration, and ground station hardware.
- Own RF and wireless subsystems: telemetry, video downlink, and command & control, including antenna integration and range testing in poor conditions and optimise for high-interference electronic warfare environments.
- Define system architecture and translate block diagrams into functional products.
- Work with manufacturers and suppliers on cost, yield, reliability, and manufacturability.
- Use AI tools to accelerate design, firmware, and debug.
- Help define engineering culture, tools, and the hardware team behind you.
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What We're Looking For
- A track record of taking hardware from blank page to manufactured units that work in the field, or a portfolio of personal builds that proves you can do it.
- Strong PCB design skills in Altium or KiCad.
- Deep grounding in analog, digital, and power electronics.
- Real RF/wireless design experience.
- Comfortable with the gap between “works on the bench” and “works at range in the field.”
- Bias toward shipping.
- Comfortable getting outside and testing in the real world with us.
Nice to Have
- Defence, aerospace, or UAV industry experience.
- Personal experience building and flying drones, robots, or other unmanned systems.
- Embedded work with STM32-class MCUs and protocols such as SPI, I2C, UART, USB, CAN, and Ethernet.
- Long-range RF protocols and link budget analysis.
- Analog and high-speed digital video design.
- C/C++ firmware for board bring-up and diagnostics.
- DFM, DFT, and EMI experience.
- Startup or founding engineer experience.
Why Join
- Founding-level ownership of the hardware stack and technical direction.
- Fast iteration: hardware in operators’ hands in months, not years.
- Small, high-agency team with a direct line from idea to field test.
- Real deployment pressure, real feedback, real learning.
- Snack of choice stocked in the workshop
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