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T
Tesla
Sr. Sensor Hardware Engineer, Environmental Control & ADAS Sensor Cleaning
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Based on California data
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What they do
A Hardware Engineer designs and develops computer hardware such as circuit boards, chips, modems, and keyboards. Works with computer software engineers and developers to improve technology.
$160,540 / year median in California
-5% projected decline
Job Description
A fog-free windshield, clean cabin air, a clear camera lens at highway speed — these are only possible with the hardware that senses and controls the vehicle's environment. That hardware delivers a comfortable, healthy cabin and keeps the vision system clean for FSD, and the Sensing Hardware Team is looking for the engineer who will own it across millions of vehicles, in climates you can't always predict. This role spans the sensing and driver electronics behind three connected systems — HVAC climate control, cabin air quality, and camera/optical-surface cleaning (including condensation management): the sensors for temperature, humidity, air quality, contamination, ambient light, and solar load, and the electronics that act on them (heaters, fans/blowers, valves, wiper/washer actuation, defog, defrost). You define both outcomes quantitatively, then build the hardware that guarantees them. On the cabin side, as FSD frees people from the wheel, clean air and stable climate stop being comfort features and become the experience itself. On the vision side, a fogged, iced, or grime-covered lens blinds FSD — clean optics aren't a convenience, they're a safety-critical function. You'll own a focused set of these subsystems and go deep — end-to-end from requirements through design, validation, supplier accountability, and production launch. This is a role for an engineer who wants to be the definitive owner of a subsystem — not one contributor among many. You'll take first-of-its-kind hardware from concept to high-volume production at a pace few companies can match, meeting automotive reliability and safety standards on one of the most visible products in the world. Own your subsystems end-to-end and be accountable for how they perform in the field, not just at launch Define cabin comfort, air quality, optical clarity, and sensor availability as measurable hardware requirements — then own the systems that deliver them at scale Challenge inherited architectures from first principles. When the existing approach hits a fundamental limit, make the case and drive the alternative to production Make technology, architecture, and integration decisions where precedent is absent, and defend them with data and logical thinking Lead schematic design, component selection, PCB layout, and BOM definition for analog front-ends, signal conditioning, and vehicle interface electronics Design and validate across full environmental envelopes — thermal swings, humidity, contamination, and EMI Build validation plans with measurable pass/fail criteria tied to comfort, air quality, optical performance, and FSD safety outcomes — not just component specs Collaborate with autonomy, thermal/cabin, and product design to align hardware with optical-clarity, climate, and integration requirements across the vehicle Drive suppliers to performance, reliability, and cost targets, holding partners accountable to their commitments Compress prototype-to-production timelines through disciplined iteration and early manufacturing engagement Sensing architectures for temperature, humidity, air quality, contamination detection, optical-clarity measurement, ambient light, and solar load — and the transducer technologies behind them (e.g. NIR, electrochemical, capacitive, thermal, optical, and MEMS) Comprehensive environmental test matrices with measurable pass/fail criteria tied to comfort, air quality, optical performance, and FSD margins Driver circuits for actuators — heaters, motors, fans/blowers, valves — including control topologies and thermal management Comfortable defining requirements and making risk-based decisions under incomplete information — you identify knowledge gaps, design experiments, and decide without complete specifications PCB and EMC design for harsh automotive environments — signal/power integrity, thermal performance, shielding, filtering, and transient suppression to ISO 7637 and