Haptics Firmware Engineer

<p><strong>About Hark</strong></p> <p>Hark is an artificial intelligence company building advanced, personalized intelligence. One that is proactive, multimodal, and capable of interacting with the world through speech, text, vision, and persistent memory.</p> <p>We're pairing that intelligence with next-generation hardware to create a universal interface between humans and machines. While today's AI largely operates through chat boxes and decade-old devices, Hark is focused on what comes next: agentic systems that interact naturally with people and the real world.</p> <p>To get there, we're developing multimodal models and next-generation AI hardware together - designed from the ground up as a single, unified interface for a new era of intelligent systems.</p> <p><strong>About the Role&nbsp;</strong></p> <p>Hark is looking for an experience-focused, hands-on embedded engineer to build haptic and motion control system firmware and software that deliver incredible interaction experiences. &nbsp; We care a lot about how things feel, and how the people that use them feel, and we want someone who shares that craft mindset.</p> <p><strong>Responsibilities</strong></p> <ul> <li>Write real-time firmware in C and C++ that drives motion and haptic systems.</li> <li>Close the loop on response time and feel. characterize actuator behavior on the bench and tune controllers until the result is genuinely pleasant to use.</li> <li>Stand up early hardware, prove out feel and timing in prototype form, and shape the final shipping experience alongside product and industrial design partners.</li> </ul> <p><strong>Requirements</strong></p> <ul> <li>5+ years writing firmware for microcontrollers in C and C++.</li> <li>Demonstrated hands-on motor or actuator control work that shipped — PID, feed-forward, FOC, observers, and similar techniques.</li> <li>Comfort on the bench with scopes, logic analyzers, and bus traffic over I²C, SPI, or I²S.</li> <li>Working knowledge of Python or another scripting language for measurement automation and quick data analysis.</li> <li>Clear written communication — you can explain a tradeoff to a non-firmware teammate without losing them.</li> <li>A strong instinct for what distinguishes haptics that feel right.</li> </ul> <p><strong>Bonus Qualifications</strong></p> <ul> <li>DSP fundamentals: filtering, time-domain shaping, and basic perceptual modeling.</li> <li>RTOS experience or comfort with bare-metal scheduling for hard real-time control loops.</li> <li>Familiarity with low-power system design and the measurement habits that come with it.</li> <li>Prior work on consumer haptics, audio, or other systems where feel and timing are visible to the user.</li> </ul> <p><strong>Compensation</strong></p> <p><span data-sheets-root="1">The US base salary range for this full-time position is between $120,000 - $300,000 annually.</span></p> <p>The pay offered for this position may vary based on several individual factors, including job-related knowledge, skills, and experience. The total compensation package may also include additional components/benefits depending on the specific role. This information will be shared if an employment offer is extended.</p>