Integration and Test Engineering Intern

Start date is Sept 1 in SF - role will be closed once a suitable candidate is found

Hi! 👋

My name is Sophia Millar. I’m the Co-Founder and CEO of Sonibel Instruments. We’re a hardtech startup with the mission of modernizing manufacturing so we can keep up with the world’s growing demand for urgent critical infrastructure, from skyscrapers to naval ships to grid expansions.

At Sonibel Instruments we work hard. You’ll get:

• ⚙️Autonomy and freedom. You pick your own projects, set your own goals, and work the hours you want at our SF office
• 🔧Only important work. We’re a small team so there’s no busy work. You’ll be leading mission critical projects from the ground up
• 🤖Fast, hands-on work across functions. Every week comes with new problems, new skills, and real things to build
• 💡Decisions based on data. Everyone at every level is trusted to make decisions and experiment
• 💰Competitve compensation through salary and equity (if you join us full time) so you’ll own your work
• 🦾Leaders who own their mistakes, actively seek feedback to identify & solve them, and are pretty experienced

In the past 10 months, we’ve:

• 💸 Raised over $1.6M USD
• 👩‍🏭Invented and patented a first-of-its-kind system
• 🎉Landed major customers including the Navy!
• 🏆Had inbound requests from the biggest manufacturers in the world wanting to use our tool including Caterpillar, John Deere, Exxon, Komatsu, L&T, and more
• 🎓Graduated from the Creative Destruction Lab
• 😎And we just started growing the team past the 3 founders
  

We’re building the first ever complete real-time quality control system for welders. Our edge device is powered by acoustics: it listens to welds in real-time and alerts the welder if there’s a defect. This can cut total project costs by 30% and save 2 months on a year-long timeline, making it cheaper and faster to build urgent critical infrastructure. With a $1.5 trillion manufacturing backlog and huge labour shortage, we’re in high demand.

You’ll be doing and learning to:

• 🧪 Design and execute system-level integration and reliability tests, including edge cases, environmental variation, power/connectivity failures, and installation conditions
• 🔍 Perform root-cause analysis on test failures and translate findings into specific mechanical, electrical, or firmware design changes
• 🔧 Own product iterations from design through validation, including CAD, electrical changes, prototyping, firmware updates, system bring-up, and regression testing
• 🏭 Develop and validate customer-specific integrations, adapting mechanical interfaces, electronics, firmware, and configuration to new equipment and operating constraints
• 📦 Engineer the product for repeatable build and deployment, improving assembly, installation, serviceability, acceptance testing, and the technical documentation required to support each unit

These will change based on what the product needs most. Overall, we want someone to own the integration and test loop: validate the system, diagnose failures, build and verify product iterations, and help make each configuration reliable and repeatable for deployment.

The ideal candidate:

• 🚀 Wants the intensity of a fast-growing, well-funded SF startup and is prepared to work long, demanding hours to move the product forward quickly
• 🌉 Is excited to own projects that turn Sonibel's new industrial technology into a real product used to build the ships, infrastructure, energy systems, and structures we depend on
• ✅ Works independently, documents decisions clearly, and follows problems through to a verified fix
• 🧪 Is comfortable designing tests, reproducing failures, and using evidence to decide what needs to change
• 🔧 Can move between mechanical, electrical, and firmware problems without treating subsystem boundaries as someone else’s job
• 🛠️ Has built and debugged physical systems using CAD, prototyping, basic electronics, and embedded hardware
• ⚡ Understands how sensors, power, embedded compute, and mechanical interfaces interact in a real device
• 📐 Can take an engineering change from initial diagnosis through design, build, integration, and validation
• 🏭 Is comfortable working from incomplete customer requirements and turning them into a tested product configuration
• 🌟 Bonus points:
  • Experience with PCB bring-up, embedded C/C++, or microcontrollers
  • Experience with DAQ systems, sensors, signal acquisition, or instrumentation
  • Experience with environmental, reliability, HIL, or automated hardware testing
  • Experience designing mechanical parts for 3D printing, machining, or production
  • Experience building or deploying robotics, industrial equipment, or other electromechanical systems

Meeting even 50–70% of these means you could be a great fit!

If you made it this far, APPLY by sending our CPO, Hooman an email with your resume and a bit about why you’re interested: [email protected]. Use the subject line: “Sonibel I&T Internship”.

This write up was inspired by our friends at Pilot!