Engineering Manager, Hardware Validation

Applied Intuition, Inc. is powering the future of physical AI. Founded in 2017 and now valued at $15 billion, the Silicon Valley company is creating the digital infrastructure needed to bring intelligence to every moving machine on the planet. Applied Intuition services the automotive, defense, trucking, construction, mining and agriculture industries in three core areas: tools and infrastructure, operating systems, and autonomy. Eighteen of the top 20 global automakers, as well as the United States military and its allies, trust the company’s solutions to deliver physical intelligence. Applied Intuition is headquartered in Sunnyvale, California, with offices in Washington, D.C.; San Diego; Ft. Walton Beach, Florida; Ann Arbor, Michigan; London; Stuttgart; Munich; Stockholm; Bangalore; Seoul; and Tokyo. Learn more at applied.co .

We are an in-office company, and our expectation is that full-time employees primarily work from their Applied Intuition office 5 days a week. However, we also recognize the importance of flexibility and trust our employees to manage their schedules responsibly. This may include occasional remote work, starting the day with morning meetings from home before heading to the office, or leaving earlier when needed to accommodate family commitments. This in-office expectation does not apply to contractor positions

About the role

As the Manager of Hardware System Validation, you will lead a 0 to 1 initiative to build out Applied Intuition's hardware system validation department. You will own hardware validation and reliability testing across automotive, trucking, defense, construction, mining, and agriculture products. Working directly with external automotive and defense customers, you will hire, scale, and lead a multidisciplinary validation team spanning electrical engineering, mechanical engineering, software automation, and systems engineering to ensure all hardware hits our strict KPI and quality targets.

At Applied Intuition, you will:

• Build the hardware system validation function from 0 to 1 and scale the team cross-functionally

• Define, architect, and execute system test plans and reliability validation processes across all hardware products

• Hire and direct a validation engineering team across electrical engineering, mechanical engineering, software automation, and systems engineering

• Work directly with external customers to translate operational requirements into rigorous hardware validation test specs

• Ensure all physical AI hardware products hit strict electrical, mechanical, environmental, and system-level KPIs

• Develop automated test execution scripts and software pipelines to streamline test coverage and hardware validation cycles

We're looking for someone who has:

• BS or MS degree in Electrical Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Systems Engineering, Computer Science, or a related field

• 10+ years of experience in hardware system validation, testing, and reliability engineering

• 5+ years of experience leading and managing cross-functional technical teams (Electrical, Mechanical, Automation, and Systems Engineers)

• Mixed product background spanning consumer electronics and one or more target sectors: automotive, trucking, defense, construction, mining, or agriculture

• Deep expertise defining hardware system test requirements, environmental reliability tests, and hardware-in-the-loop (HIL) validation setups

• Hands-on coding proficiency in Python, C++, or scripting languages for test automation, data analysis, and hardware control

Nice to have:

• Hands-on experience shipping high-complexity hardware in both early-stage startup (0 to 1) and mass-production environments

• Familiarity with automotive reliability standards (e.g., ISO 16750, AEC-Q100) or MIL-STD environmental testing protocols

• Strong commitment to customer success and raising technical quality bars across complex hardware platforms

Don’t meet every single requirement? If you’re excited about this role but your past experience doesn’t align perfectly with every qualification in the job description, we encourage you to apply anyway. You may be just the right candidate for this or other roles.