Electrical & Hardware Engineer at Mercor

Electrical & Hardware Engineer | $100-120/hr | Remote | Contractor

Mercor is seeking experienced Electrical and Hardware Engineers to support an advanced engineering and AI research initiative with a leading technology organisation. The role is aimed at engineers who have designed, built, tested, brought up, debugged or validated real-world hardware systems in production environments. Relevant backgrounds include RF/antenna engineering, power electronics, analog/mixed-signal design, hardware/PCB design and signal integrity.

What the work involves

• Apply hands-on electrical and hardware expertise to technically complex engineering tasks.
• Review and evaluate hardware designs, engineering workflows, technical analyses and troubleshooting approaches.
• Analyse design trade-offs, failure modes, measurements, test results and system-level engineering decisions.
• Assess the technical correctness and practicality of engineering solutions, identifying errors, missing assumptions, unrealistic recommendations and design or implementation risks.
• Develop or review technically rigorous engineering problems, reference solutions, evaluation criteria or supporting documentation.
• Provide clear technical feedback grounded in real engineering experience and industry best practices.

Requirements

• 5+ years of professional industry experience, including at least 3 years of recent, actively hands-on work in hardware development, testing, bring-up, validation or troubleshooting.
• Experience serving as the responsible engineer for substantial portions of a hardware development workflow, rather than solely managing engineering teams or projects.
• Deep expertise in at least one of: RF systems, antennas, electromagnetic design or RF validation; power electronics, power conversion, motor drives or power delivery; analog or mixed-signal circuit design; PCB architecture, schematic design, board bring-up or hardware debugging; signal integrity, power integrity, high-speed interfaces or system-level electrical validation.
• Strong understanding of practical engineering constraints, including component selection, tolerances, measurement, manufacturing, reliability, thermal considerations and system integration.
• Experience debugging real hardware using laboratory equipment, simulation tools and engineering instrumentation.
• Ability to explain technical decisions, trade-offs and failure modes clearly and rigorously.

Preferred background

Experience at a company that designs and manufactures physical hardware products is strongly preferred, for example in aerospace & defence, space, automotive/EV, semiconductors, consumer electronics and computing, drones/eVTOL/robotics, or industrial, energy and medical devices.

Pay, schedule and location

$100-120/hr as an hourly contractor. Fully remote, with flexible engagement structures. You will work on technically challenging problems at the intersection of advanced hardware engineering and AI research, where practical engineering judgment is valued alongside experienced engineers and researchers.