Robotics Electronics Engineer

About the role

Way of Water is a funded field-robotics project at ETH Zurich (Institute for Dynamic Systems and Control, Research D'Andrea). It builds autonomous surface robots whose electronics must withstand batteries, water, EMI and long days outdoors while remaining serviceable. This is a project-staff position of about 18 months, fully within the institute, with competitive pay depending on experience.

Key responsibilities

• Own the electrical and embedded layer: from requirements and schematics to boards that boot, talk to sensors and actuators and survive real use.
• Bring systems up, write the firmware or diagnostics needed to understand them, and leave tests others can run again.
• Work with mechanical and software colleagues on mounting, connectors, grounding, timing, power budgets and failures caused by water or vibration.
• Partner with fabricators, assemblers and technicians so designs become maintainable units.
• Investigate hard faults with instruments and logs, turning field symptoms into electrical or firmware fixes.

Required profile

• About 0-5 years of hands-on experience after your degree; internships, thesis projects, focus projects and paid project work count.
• Background in electrical engineering, electronics, embedded systems or equivalent practical experience.
• Evidence of having designed, brought up, debugged and handed over boards or electronic systems yourself.
• Hands-on work: bringing up boards, probing faults and shipping working electronics on the bench and in the field.
• Appetite for outdoor and on-water testing, including Lake Zurich and partner sites.

Required skills

• Practical circuit judgement (analog and digital, board-level power, grounding).
• Comfort with common device interfaces.
• Embedded or test software, for example C/C++ and a scripting language.
• Experience with battery systems, robotics, environmental testing, EMI/EMC or small production runs is welcome.

Applications are submitted only through the online application portal, with a CV and one or two examples of boards or electronic systems you personally delivered.