Senior Staff Edge Applications Engineer (Hardware & Embedded Lab Lead)

Head Our Edge AI Prototyping Lab. Build Physical Rigs. Deploy TinyML on Silicon.

About the Role & The Reality AI Lab

The Renesas AIoT Center of Excellence in Columbia MD (formerly Reality AI) is seeking a hands-on Senior Staff Edge AI Applications Engineer to lead our physical Edge AI Applications Lab.

In this role you will head our physical lab facility direct R&D and proof-of-concept (PoC) hardware builds manage project scheduling and mentor junior engineers. You will operate at the exact intersection of small-scale physical fabrication digital signal processing (DSP) C/C embedded firmware and microcontroller-level TinyML deployment.

You will lead the end-to-end execution of non-visual sensing solutions - instrumenting physical hardware setups (industrial motors automotive systems consumer devices) collecting high-frequency time-series sensor data building custom DSP pipelines and optimizing tiny machine learning models to run on Renesas silicon.

Are you a Senior Embedded Engineer or Applied Physicist who thrives in a physical lab environment building custom sensor rigs soldering prototype boards and squeezing machine learning models onto microcontrollers

ATTENTION APPLICANTS: READ BEFORE APPLYING

• This is a physical lab leadership and embedded hardware role.

• DO NOT APPLY if your background is strictly in Cloud AI Data Science Generative AI LLMs LangChain or Web Backend APIs.

• DO APPLY if you have 7 years of experience building physical prototype rigs writing embedded C/C running FFTs on raw accelerometer/acoustic data debugging SPI/I2C signals with an oscilloscope and running TinyML on bare-metal silicon.

Key Responsibilities

• Lab Ownership & Technical Leadership: Manage physical lab facilities equipment part procurement and project scheduling for customer PoCs internal R&D and cross-BU hardware integrations.

• Physical Prototyping & Fabrication: Lead hands-on assembly of prototype rigs sensor arrays 3D-printed mounts and microelectronic setups to capture real-world physical data.

• High-Frequency Sensor Data Engineering: Instrument physical systems to capture clean and preprocess high-frequency time-series datasets (acoustic vibration electrical motor current).

• DSP & TinyML Deployment: Design DSP feature extraction pipelines (FFTs spectral analysis filtering) and deploy optimized quantized TinyML models onto microcontrollers (ARM Cortex-M Renesas RA/RX/RL78) using TFLite Micro CMSIS-NN or eIQ.

• Customer & Cross-BU Collaboration: Work directly with customers and internal product teams to ingest raw hardware telemetry debug edge firmware issues and demonstrate live hardware solutions.

• Team Mentorship: Lead mentor and guide junior lab engineers in firmware debugging signal processing and physical prototype fabrication.

Why Join Renesas

• No SCIF / No Clearance: Enjoy complex signal processing and hardware challenges without defense contractor bureaucracy or classified workspace restrictions.

• Commercial Product Impact: What you build in our lab gets integrated into Renesas silicon and deployed into millions of industrial automotive and consumer devices globally.

• Startup Autonomy Global Backing: Small-team environment (under 50 people in Columbia) backed by one of the worlds premier semiconductor manufacturers.

Qualifications :

• Education: M.S. or Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering Computer Engineering Applied Physics or a related technical discipline. (BSEE with extensive demonstrable lab leadership experience will also be evaluated).

• Career Experience: 712 years of hands-on experience in embedded software physical hardware prototyping digital signal processing and real-time edge computing.

• Hardware & Lab Skills: Proven expertise in physical system fabrication 3D printing electrical assembly PCB bring-up and low-level debugging with oscilloscopes logic analyzers and JTAG/SWD.

• Embedded Firmware: Strong C/C programming for constrained microcontrollers bare-metal or RTOS (FreeRTOS Zephyr) DMA buffer management and low-level drivers (SPI I2C UART CAN).

• Signal Processing & On-Device ML: Deep understanding of digital signal processing (DSP) for time-series/audio data and practical experience deploying quantized ML models directly onto microcontrollers.

Additional Information :

The expected annual pay range for this position is $139500 - $185000. This position is also eligible for   bonus opportunities and commission pay.  Please note that the final offer amount will be dependent on geographic location applicable experience and skillset of the candidate. 

Renesas offers a full range of elective benefits including medical health savings account (with applicable medical plan) dental vision health and/or dependent care flexible spending accounts pre-tax commuter benefits life insurance AD&D and pet addition to elective benefit options benefited employees receive company-paid life insurance and AD&D LTD short term medical benefits as well as paid sick time paid holidays and accrued paid vacation. New employees will attend a detailed benefit orientation to learn more about our many benefits and resources 

Renesas is an embedded semiconductor solution provider driven by its Purpose To Make Our Lives Easier. With a global team of over 21000 engineers and problem solvers in more than 30 countries we offer the opportunity to work on worldleading technology for Automotive Industrial Infrastructure and IoT shaping a safer healthier greener and smarter future.

At Renesas TAGIE is our culture grounded in being Transparent Agile Global Innovative and Entrepreneurial. It shapes how we work grow and deliver on our purpose together. This collaborative spirit and mindset drive our semiconductor technology to transform industries and impact millions of lives.

We believe in rewarding our employees with a competitive benefits package alongside their salary. More information will be provided during the hiring process.

Are you ready to join our team and shape the future with us

Renesas Electronics is an equal opportunity and affirmative action employer committed to supporting diversity and fostering a work environment free of discrimination on the basis of sex race religion national origin gender gender identity gender expression age sexual orientation military status veteran status or any other basis protected by law. For more information please read our Diversity & Inclusion Statement.

Renesas Electronics deals with dual-use technology that is subject to U.S. export controls regulations. Under these regulations it may be necessary for Renesas to obtain U.S. government export license prior to release of technology to certain persons. The decision whether or not to file or pursue an export license application is at the sole discretion of Renesas.

Remote Work :

No

Employment Type :

Full-time