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Electrical Engineer, Reality Labs Hardware

Meta
1 day ago
Full-time
On-site
Redmond, Washington, United States
$144,000 - $204,000 USD yearly
At Meta, we're building the future of human connection and the technology that enables it. This means continuously inventing and developing technologies for the next generation of experiences. Display Systems Research in Reality Labs Research invents the displays and optical architectures that future AR and VR devices will be built on. Our Hardware Research team is the group that turns those ideas into hardware you can actually put on your face: we design, build, instrument, and integrate the research prototypes that prove whether a display architecture works, and We are looking for an Electrical Engineer to own the electronics behind those prototypes. This is a hands-on research hardware role. You will design the drive electronics for novel illumination sources and modulators that do not have off-the-shelf drivers, bring up custom boards on the bench, instrument experiments so researchers get trustworthy data, and carry systems from a benchtop optical setup to a wearable form factor demonstration. The problems are genuinely new — the architecture is often being invented while you build the electronics for it — so we care as much about judgment, debugging instinct, and comfort with ambiguity as we do about any specific tool on your resume.

Own prototype electronics end to end: requirements, architecture, schematic capture, layout direction, fabrication, bring-up, characterization, and documentation, including the build-versus-buy call on hardware you own

Design rigid, flex, and rigid-flex PCBs for weight- and power-constrained near-eye form factors, working to outlines, bend zones, and height budgets set with mechanical and opto-mechanical engineers

Design precision drive electronics for illumination sources, displays, and a variety of sensors and modulators: multi-channel current control, frame-synchronized pulsed waveforms, photodiode feedback, thermal interlocks, and crosstalk and uniformity control

Own all aspects of new display bring-up, including interface definition and control, timing generation and synchronization, and supporting logic development for coordination with other system elements

Support feature requests from metrology and experience development teams needed to characterize and demonstrate the features of new displays and other technologies

Bring up new boards on the bench, debug ambiguous cross-domain failures, and drive efficiency, noise, and thermal performance to what the optical measurement requires

Collaborate with optics, mechanics, and firmware to carry systems from benchtop to wearable prototypes; build the instrumentation and documentation others depend on; and turn researchers' optical requirements into electrical specs, finding creative system level solutions to difficult requirements

BS in Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering, Electrical and Computer Engineering, and/or equivalent practical experience

6+ years of hands-on electrical engineering experience taking custom hardware from concept through schematic, layout, fabrication, bring-up, and characterization

Schematic capture and PCB layout fluency (Altium, Cadence/OrCAD/Allegro, Mentor/Siemens, or equivalent)

Embedded systems experience: microcontroller selection and bring-up, peripheral configuration, and the common digital buses (I2C, SPI, UART, USB), plus the ability to write and modify the firmware needed to make your own board work

Strong lab and bench practice: oscilloscope, DMM, power supply, electronic load, LCR, spectrum or network analyzer, DAQ — plus soldering, rework, and harness fabrication on your own hardware

Experience writing technical documentation and specs that enable other engineers to act independently

Experience adhering to and implementing responsible, ethical AI practices (e.g., risk assessment, bias mitigation, quality and accuracy reviews)

Flex and rigid-flex design depth: stackup and material selection, bend-zone rules, copper balancing, strain relief, and working from ME-supplied outlines

Demonstrated ability to integrate AI tools to optimize/redesign workflows and drive measurable impact (e.g., efficiency gains, quality improvements)

Display and modulator drive experience: LCD, LCoS, microLED, OLED, MEMS, DMD, or phase light modulators; panel interfaces (MIPI DSI/CSI, eDP, DisplayPort, LVDS); timing controllers and backlight or illumination synchronization

MS in Electrical Engineering or equivalent experience, or a research or advanced-development background incubating new technology

EMI/EMC fundamentals, laser safety (ANSI Z136 or equivalent), and electrical safety practice in a research lab

Python for instrument control, automated measurement, and data analysis

Photonics, optics, or display literacy — radiometry and photometry, étendue, wall-plug efficiency, color and gamut, or optical metrology — enough to speak the researchers' language

Demonstrated ongoing AI skill development (e.g., prompt/context engineering, agent orchestration) and staying current with emerging AI technologies

Laser or LED driver design: constant-current drivers, modulation and pulsed drive, photodiode feedback and optical power stabilization, eye-safety interlocks, and thermal protection