Senior Application Engineer (Hardware)

Location: Hong Kong / RemoteType: Full Time
Reports to: VP of Platform

The Role

As Nex’s Senior Application Engineer in Hardware, you are part of a small but growing hardware engineering team that aims to expand and elevate our premium, versatile, and cutting-edge hardware platform for active play. Your role is to help guide hardware development and push technology boundaries by exploring, evaluating, and validating current and emerging hardware technologies, including SoC platforms, sensors, I/O devices, and other critical subsystems. You apply your industry knowledge, and hardware and software know-how, to research these technologies, build proof-of-concepts, and design experiments to identify their potentials and ceilings. You will also take part in product specification throughout the product lifecycle.

The Mindset

As a technology enthusiast, you are insatiably curious. You want to try every technology possible and never mind going to great lengths to achieve that, as you absolutely enjoy the process. You are simultaneously creative, critical, and methodical. You possess the ability to explain in depth everything you create. You search for meaning and purpose, and want to leverage your interests and skills in a creative endeavor that improves people’s lives.

What You'll Do

• Explore and evaluate current and emerging hardware technologies to build the team's foundational knowledge and competencies in hardware.
• Meet with technology vendors, and source and set up relevant developer kits for evaluation.
• Design and conduct experiments to assess hardware reliability and performance.
• Develop novel solutions and prototypes to demonstrate concepts and feasibility.
• Develop and adapt low-level hardware drivers.
• Support the development of new accessories, motion tracking technologies, and the Playground operating system.
• Contribute to defining and developing next-generation hardware.
• Provide consultation on the company’s hardware technology direction and strategy.
• Serve as a founding member of the hardware team and help attract future talent.

Must Have

• Bachelor’s degree in computer science, electronic engineering, or related fields.
• 5+ years of experience in embedded system development.
• Solid experience with firmware, driver, and HAL development.
• Solid experience in developing end-to-end hardware solutions that solve real-world problems.
• Solid experience in working with vision or non-vision sensors.
• Knowledge of Android or Linux operating systems, drivers, HALs, system debugging, and performance optimization techniques.
• Proficiency in C and Python.
• Proficiency in English and Mandarin Chinese communication.
• Desire to help other people succeed.

Nice To Have

• Domain knowledge of Arm architectures.
• Experience with deploying ML applications on the edge.
• Domain knowledge of camera sensors, lens optics, and ISPs.
• Hardware prototyping skills (ME EE).
• Extensive list of hardware projects completed in a professional or personal capacity.
• Great empathy and a strong product mindset.
• Interest in venture business and startup life.
• Relevant industry connections