Raleigh-Durham, NC — Hybrid, with regular hands-on field work
Schedule:
40 hours/week for the first 3 months; potential 10 hours/week for an additional 3 months
Pay:
$75.00 to $90.00
Project:
FrySense IoT Platform Build It. Install It. Break It. Make It Better. Greasecycle is building FrySense , an IoT platform designed for the messy real world of commercial restaurant kitchens. FrySense connects to bulk cooking oil delivery, filtration, and waste oil systems. Sensors and cellular-connected hardware tell us how much oil is in a tank, when a restaurant filters its fryers, when oil gets transferred, and when something isn't working correctly. We have working prototypes and real systems deployed at restaurants. Now we need an engineer who can help us turn a promising prototype into a reliable product. This is not a sit-behind-a-desk engineering job. We want someone who likes building things with their hands, writing firmware, looking at data, and then driving to a restaurant in Raleigh or Durham to figure out why a sensor is giving us a weird reading. You might spend Monday programming an ESP32, Tuesday building a test rig, and Wednesday standing next to a 300-gallon waste oil tank with a multimeter trying to understand what is actually happening. If that sounds fun, keep reading. The Mission Your job is simple: Help us get FrySense from MVP to a field-proven system we can confidently deploy across hundreds—and eventually thousands—of restaurant locations. For the first 3 months, this is a full-time, 40-hour-per-week project. We expect a fast development cycle with significant hands-on testing and regular visits to deployed FrySense systems throughout the Raleigh-Durham area. After the initial 3-month sprint, there may be an opportunity to continue for another 3 months at approximately 10 hours per week to support field performance, troubleshooting, firmware improvements, and the transition toward scaled production. What You'll Actually DoBuild & Test Hardware You will evaluate and integrate sensors including: Ultrasonic / time-of-flight liquid-level sensors Radar and other level-sensing technologies Current sensors / ammeters Mechanical overflow floats Relays and smart switches Cellular IoT hardware You'll build benchtop prototypes, wiring harnesses, tank test systems, and whatever else we need to answer questions quickly. You'll test equipment against the things that actually matter: hot cooking oil, grease, oil mist, condensation, vibration, electrical noise, restaurant employees, and time. A beautiful prototype that only works on a workbench doesn't help us. Own Embedded Firmware You'll write, debug, and improve firmware for hardware such as: Arduino R3/R4 ESP32 and similar microcontrollers Blues Wireless cellular hardware / Notehub You'll help solve problems involving power management, grounding, brownouts, sensor noise, connectivity, data transmission, and event detection. You'll maintain clean, documented code in GitHub so another engineer can pick up where you left off. Connect Hardware to the Cloud You'll help move data reliably from the restaurant to our FrySense dashboard.
That includes:
Cellular IoT communication JSON payloads Webhooks REST APIs Event-triggered reporting Working with our web developers on backend integration You don't need to be a full-stack developer. You do need to understand how data gets from a sensor bolted to a tank into a database that our software can use. Get Into the Field This part matters. We specifically want someone willing to regularly visit restaurant locations throughout Raleigh, Durham, and the surrounding Triangle. You'll install prototypes, inspect existing installations, pull data, talk with our operations team, troubleshoot failures, and compare what the software says with what is physically happening. Something isn't reading correctly? Go look at it. Sensor says a tank is 70% full but the tank looks empty? Go figure out why. A filtration event isn't showing up in the data? Bring a meter, open the enclosure, watch the system operate, and find the answer. We believe great hardware gets built by engineers who stay close to the equipment and the people actually using it. Who We're Looking For You may have a background in: Electrical Engineering Computer Engineering Embedded Systems Mechatronics IoT product development Or years of hands-on experience building things that actually work The degree matters less than what you can build. You should be comfortable with several of these: C/C++ embedded programming Arduino ESP32 Sensors and signal processing Current sensing Relays Wiring and harness fabrication Electrical schematics Cellular IoT Blues Wireless / Notehub or similar platforms Webhooks and REST APIs Git / GitHub Multimeters, oscilloscopes, and basic electrical troubleshooting Designing toward a custom PCB You'll Probably Love This Role If... You have a garage or workbench full of half-finished projects. You would rather test an idea today than debate it for two weeks. When hardware fails, your first reaction is curiosity—not frustration. You don't mind getting your hands dirty. You're comfortable working independently without someone handing you a perfectly written specification. You can move between firmware, wires, sensors, data, and physical equipment without saying, "That's someone else's job." And when the data doesn't make sense, you're willing to drive 20 minutes to the restaurant and see what is actually happening. This Probably Isn't For You If... You want a fully remote engineering position. You only want to write firmware and hand hardware problems to someone else. You need requirements to be completely defined before starting. You prefer long development cycles and polished specifications over rapid testing. You don't want to crawl behind restaurant equipment, open an electrical enclosure, or troubleshoot a prototype in the field. There is nothing wrong with any of that. It just isn't this project. What Success Looks Like At the end of the initial 3-month sprint, we want FrySense materially closer to a product we can deploy at scale.
That means:
Reliable sensing. Reliable firmware. Reliable communication. Clean documentation. Real-world validation. We want to understand what works, what doesn't, and why. Most importantly, we want the next 100 installations to be better because of what we learned from the first ones. Engagement Months 1-3: Approximately 40 hours/week This is the heavy build-and-test phase. Expect significant prototyping, firmware development, testing, documentation, and field work around the Raleigh-Durham area. Months 4-6: Optional continuation at approximately 10 hours/week If it makes sense for both sides, the role can transition into ongoing engineering support focused on field data, troubleshooting, firmware updates, design refinement, and production handoff. About Greasecycle Greasecycle is a Raleigh-based environmental services company serving restaurants throughout the Southeast. We collect and recycle used cooking oil, service grease traps, and build systems that make restaurant oil management cleaner, safer, and more reliable.
FrySense is our next step:
connecting the physical equipment we already operate in the field with technology that helps restaurants use less oil, filter more effectively, prevent overflows, and operate more efficiently. We're scrappy. We move quickly. We test ideas in the real world. If you want to build something you can actually drive across town and see working at a customer location, we'd like to talk to you. We'd especially like to see something you've built. Tell us about one hardware or IoT project where you personally designed, wired, programmed, tested, or troubleshot the system.
Even better:
tell us about a time something worked perfectly on the bench, failed in the field, and how you figured out why.
Pay:
$70.00 - $90.00 per hour
Experience:
Electrical engineering: 2 years (Required) Embedded software: 2 years (Required)
Mechatronics:
2 years (Required)
Computer Engineering:
2 years (Required) IoT product development: 2 years (Required)
