Innovation Engineer

About Our Work

We are neuroscientists who build ground-breaking technology for the spatial computing era. We stimulate nerves to create artificial tactile sensations, creating new, more meaningful connections to the user for notifications, 3D digital content, physical AI, health information, and beyond. Our first products will be wearable devices that stream haptic data from multiple digital sources to create meaningful touch sensations.

What You'll Be Doing

The Innovation Engineer translates emerging research ideas into practical prototypes and feasibility demonstrations by working at the intersection of research, engineering, and product development. The role involves designing and building rapid hardware and embedded systems prototypes to test scientific hypotheses and evaluate real-world constraints such as power, latency, form factor, reliability, and manufacturability. Collaborating closely with research scientists, R&D engineers, and product teams, the Innovation Engineer integrates hardware and firmware, designs experiments, analyzes performance results, and documents findings that guide product strategy and customer pilot programs. This position requires strong cross-disciplinary technical skills in embedded systems, hardware integration, and rapid prototyping, along with the ability to navigate ambiguous challenges and deliver clear, evidence-based recommendations.

Key Responsibilities

• Design, build, and test rapid prototypes to evaluate technical feasibility of emerging concepts and product ideas.

• Select appropriate components, architectures, and integration approaches for embedded and hardware systems.

• Develop test firmware, instrumentation, and logging capabilities to evaluate performance and constraints.

• Integrate hardware, firmware, and mechanical elements into functional prototypes.

• Evaluate prototype system tradeoffs including power usage, thermal behavior, component tolerances, and manufacturability.

• Document and present technical findings and constraints to guide future design decisions.

• Develop feasibility test plans and conduct experiments to demonstrate product concepts.

• Produce clear documentation including experimental test plans, prototype specifications and constraints, measurement results, and recommended future directions.

• Provide feasibility assessments and decision support for product and engineering leadership.

• Partner with research scientists, R&D engineers, product engineering, and product management to design experiments, build and evaluate prototypes, and assess prototype constraints (e.g., power, latency, integration, manufacturability), producing feasibility assessments and technical recommendations that guide product decisions.

• Work with component vendors and early customer partners to evaluate technologies, integrate prototypes, troubleshoot issues, and translate pilot insights into initial customer requirements.

• Other duties as assigned.

What You'll Need for This Position

Education

Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering, Embedded Systems, Mechanical Engineering, or a closely related discipline. PhD is not required but may be advantageous.

Must-Have Skills & Experience

• Strong expertise in embedded systems and hardware prototyping, including embedded firmware development, hardware integration, and low-level debugging.

• Solid understanding of power management and low-power embedded system design, including power budgeting and system optimization.

• Ability to design and execute structured experiments to validate technical hypotheses and evaluate system performance.

• Proficiency using lab instrumentation and debugging tools (e.g., oscilloscopes, logic analyzers, multimeters) to diagnose hardware and integration issues.

• Strong systems thinking and cross-disciplinary troubleshooting across hardware, firmware, and system integration layers.

• Ability to document technical findings and communicate results clearly to research, engineering, and product teams.

• Comfort working in fast-moving R&D environments with ambiguous requirements, translating early-stage concepts into functional prototypes and feasibility insights.

• Effective collaboration skills for working with research scientists, engineers, designers, and product managers.

• Organizational and project coordination skills to manage multiple prototypes, experiments, and documentation tasks simultaneously.

What's in It for You

Work closely with cutting-edge technology. You'll be hands-on with novel neural haptic technology that's defining the future of spatial computing and immersive experiences. You will be part of a growing team of some of the best neural engineering, sensory physiology, and human experience scientists in the world. The team will be defining the future of the human-technology relationship.

Work in a close-knit, startup environment. We strive to create an intellectually stimulating and collegial working environment. Our energy for inventing, creating, and learning spans work and play: we have regular happy hours, plan field trips, play games, play music, and generally have a good time.

An early employee experience. We are an early-stage deep tech startup company that requires all members to contribute across the entire business. On any given day, there will be new challenges and new demands to propel the business forward. We expect all employees to be able to dive into any new challenges that present themselves, even if they are beyond the job description above. If you are driven by the desire to see success and to create new tech not seen by the world previously, you will fit right into the team's culture.

Compensation & Benefits

Afference is committed to providing the sense of touch for the evolution of the human connection to technology and the future of the digital experience. We are leading this effort through deep science and technology, which provides unique experiences compared to classical haptic technologies. Our lean team of experts demands a high level of excellence but can compensate with the commensurate upside potential of an early-growth startup in a high-growth sector of extended reality.

Compensation offers depend on skills, qualifications, and experience, and range between:

$112,250 to $168,375 per year at 100% FTE

Benefits include:

• Medical, dental vision, life, STD, FSA, additional company perks

• Equity incentives

• Self-managed PTO

Location: On-site; Boulder, CO office