Hardware Expert (MSc. or PhD)

What you'll do

You turn real hardware engineering experience into problems an AI model can be tested on. Each task is a self-contained scenario drawn from industry or research practice (a subsystem heading to production, a model that has to match bench data, a verification plan, a failure that needs root-causing) with a reference solution you build and can prove. That solution might be a hand calculation, a SPICE or Simulink model, a Python or MATLAB script, or a reasoned test procedure, and the answer has to be reproducible by someone else.

Remote, contractor basis, around 15 hours a week on your own schedule.

Who qualifies

The title says MSc. or PhD, but the ad's own qualification list is broader:

• A bachelor's, master's or PhD in Electrical, Mechanical, Mechatronics, Aerospace or Systems Engineering, Applied Physics or a close field
• Substantial professional or research experience in hardware engineering, product development, systems integration, test and validation, reliability or failure analysis
• Proof that you personally owned a meaningful problem: a product that shipped, a model validated against physical tests, a test rig you built, a hard failure you diagnosed
• Hands-on experience with coding agents, which micro1 calls a must
• Comfort with tools such as Python, MATLAB, Simulink, SPICE, Julia, C/C++ or test automation platforms, where relevant

The card lists RTL and hardware as the required skills, so digital design and verification backgrounds are clearly welcome alongside board-level and mechanical hardware.

What it pays

micro1 publishes $60–120/hour, paid per task that meets the project specification, with minimum submission requirements. The upper half of that band will go to people whose problems pass review the first time.

Worth knowing

Good:

• Rewards the kind of war stories most hardware engineers already have (a production ramp, a nasty failure analysis)
• Broad: electrical, mechanical, mechatronic and systems hardware all fit
• Pays more than micro1's existing Hardware Expert listing at $50–100/hour, which is a separate posting
• Global, fully remote, no country restriction stated

Less good:

• Only ten openings, against 100 on several sibling listings this week
• The coding-agent requirement will rule out engineers who do not script their work
• Per-task pay with minimum submission levels the ad does not quantify
• micro1 wants a first task within 24–48 hours of onboarding

About this listing

Read on micro1's signed-in jobs board on 18 October 2026; it had been up for three days. This is the hardware variant of a set of "(MSc. or PhD)" expert listings micro1 posted together. The customer, project duration and payment schedule are not stated. See micro1.