About the role
About 1X We’re building humanoid robots that work in home - doing the chores, handling the tasks, and giving people their time back. Simple, but it’s not. To do this right, we have to solve robotics, AI, manufacturing - at the same time, at scale, in a form factor that has to be safe enough to live with your family. If you’re inspired by this, you’ll thrive here. We’ve been at this since 2014 and we’re at the point where the hard problems are behind us and the hard work is in front of us. NEO is our flagship - a home robot designed to move, learn, and operate in the real world alongside real people. We’re not demoing it - we’re shipping it. We’re excited to meet you, if this excites you. If you’ve spent your career working on problems that matter and want to see them actually reach the world - this is that moment. We’re scaling, we’re hiring with intention, and we need people who want to build something that will genuinely change how humans spend their time - safely creating abundance for all.
About
the Team The Robot Head team develops the sensing, interaction, and communication systems that allow NEO to understand and engage with people naturally. Audio is a critical component of human-robot interaction, enabling speech recognition, localization, communication, and environmental awareness in dynamic real-world environments. This team works across hardware, firmware, machine learning, software, industrial design, and manufacturing to deliver robust audio experiences that perform reliably inside homes and alongside people. The systems you build will directly shape how humans interact with robots every day. Your Charter Own the audio hardware and firmware systems that enable seamless communication between humans and robots. You will design, integrate, and optimize microphone and speaker systems while partnering closely with software teams developing signal processing, machine learning, and perception capabilities. Your work will span concept development, prototyping, validation, system integration, and production deployment, ensuring high-quality audio performance across diverse environments and operating conditions. Your contributions will directly impact NEO's ability to hear, understand, and communicate effectively with the people around it. Key Outcomes Deliver microphone and speaker systems that achieve robust performance across real-world acoustic environments Improve speech capture quality, localization accuracy, and overall audio reliability through iterative testing and optimization Successfully integrate audio hardware with signal processing, VAD, DOA, noise suppression, and machine learning pipelines Establish validation methodologies and performance metrics that support product readiness and production deployment Drive audio system performance improvements through field testing, data analysis, and cross-functional engineering collaboration Key Competencies Deep understanding of audio hardware design, acoustics, and electroacoustic system integration Strong hands-on engineering skills with the ability to prototype, test, debug, and validate hardware systems Ability to bridge hardware and software domains, collaborating effectively on signal processing and machine learning workflows Strong analytical mindset with experience interpreting performance data and driving design improvements Excellent communication and collaboration skills across multidisciplinary engineering teams Minimum
