Production Engineer — Electrical Design & DFX at Tutor Intelligence
Tutor Intelligence is hiring a Production Engineer — Electrical Design & DFX in Watertown, MA, US. On-site. Pay: USD 100k-150k/yr.
About Tutor Intelligence
Tutor Intelligence is an AI robotics company founded out of MIT CSAIL. It builds and deploys AI-powered robot workers for industrial settings such as manufacturing and logistics. The robots are designed to automate tasks from complex assembly to end-of-line logistics and can be deployed in days. The company partners with industry to bring humanlike intuition and flexibility to production floors while reducing the complexity, cost, and operational burden of traditional industrial automation. Tutor has already deployed its robot workforce in dozens of factories and warehouses across the country.
Production Engineer — Electrical Design & DFX job description
We believe general-purpose, generally-intelligent robots will be built in our lifetimes. Robots will work in our factories, move our goods, walk on our streets and eventually be in our homes. To build that future, research and deployment must work in lockstep: real-world operation must make the technology better, and better technology must make deployment easier. We're looking for the thinkers, builders, and researchers who want to be part of that loop.
Founded by MIT alumni and backed by over $40M from leading AI and robotics investors, we deploy real robotic systems directly into the facilities that power the physical economy. We don't just build robots — we build them, ship them, and keep them running.
The Role
You own how our robots' electrical architecture is physically realized: harnesses, connectors, cable sizing, board interfaces, routing, and every connection point. Engineering designs the circuits. You make sure the boards, cables, and connections come together into something a technician can build in an hour, a field tech can repair at a customer site, and a robot can carry through years of motion, vibration, and warehouse floors.
Where we are today: a robot that works, with an electrical package that was integrated rather than designed. Some harnesses are still built on the robot instead of released as controlled assemblies. Power and signal share bundles and glands. Cables cross fan intakes and rest on the floor pan. Connectors that should latch don't. The arm dress pack is our biggest reliability risk. Our PDU is the one example of what a designed electrical component looks like on the program — your job is to make everything else look like that.
The role works in two phases. While a robot is in development you're embedded with Hardware Engineering: building the cables and harnesses, meticulous about the CAD and the runs, in the board layout review asking "can we move this connector to that edge so the harness terminates here" and "give me a keyed part so it can't go in backwards" — you don't design the circuit, but you shape where it meets the rest of the robot. You select connectors and components with the EEs and own board and part ordering so engineering is never waiting. When the robot goes through NPI or an ECO you move with it into Manufacturing: releasing drawings, supporting ordering, training technicians, and clearing electrical issues on the floor. Inline with the design as it happens, not a review gate after it's done.
You'll spend most of your days with the hardware team, so fit with that group matters as much as the skill set. Reports to the Head of Manufacturing and Supply Chain, with a dotted line to Hardware Engineering.
What You'll Do
Turn the prototype into a product
- Convert discrete-wire, built-on-the-robot cabling into designed, documented harness assemblies with BOMs, drawings, and work instructions
- Define the electrical service architecture: where the robot comes apart, what's a field-replaceable unit, what a tech can swap with one connector and no tools
- Design connection points for reliability — latching, keyed, correct mate/demate life, strain relief, sealed where needed, protected from chafe and vibration
- Size cables and wires for ampacity, voltage drop, and fusing; standardize cable and connector families across products
- Sit in layout reviews with the EEs: connector selection and placement, orientation, keep-outs, mounting, and how each harness meets each board
- Select components and connectors, qualify alternates when parts go long-lead or end-of-life, and own board and part ordering with distributors and fab houses
- Route cables through moving axes, arms, and grippers: bend radii, drag chains, dress packs, service loops, defined lanes and trays, nothing on the floor pan, nothing across a fan
- Segregate power, signal, and communication; ground and bond correctly; shield where it matters
- Lay out control boxes and enclosures for build access and service access, not just fit
- Release designs through the ECO process; keep revision control clean between CAD, ION (our MES/PLM), and the floor
- Cut the harness drawing-to-part cycle from roughly two months to under 30 days and eliminate off-BOM cables
- Source harness houses and connector suppliers with Supply Chain, review supplier drawings, qualify first articles
- Build first articles and pilot builds by hand, then hand off documentation a technician can follow without asking
- Train technicians on harness assembly and electrical installation standards
- Feed line and field failures — connector damage, chafe, intermittents, disconnects — back into design and close them out for good
- Travel to customer sites when an electrical issue needs eyes on the robot
Shape the boards from the interface side
Design the electrical package
Take it through NPI and keep it clean
Make it stick on the floor and in the field
Requirements
Requirements
- Electrical design for manufacturability and serviceability on hardware that shipped: harnesses, connectors, cable sizing, board interfaces, and service access
- Cable harness design from concept to released drawings — wire selection, connectors, terminals, labeling, lengths, manufacturing drawings
- Hands-on: you crimp, solder, build the first article, and debug what you designed with a meter and a scope
- Component and connector selection, alternate part qualification, and board and part ordering with distributors and fab houses
- Electronic packaging and cable routing on products with motion
- Fluent in electrical/harness CAD (SolidWorks Electrical, Onshape, Zuken, Capital, Rapid Harness, or equivalent) and comfortable in mechanical CAD
- Has worked in a production manufacturing environment and is comfortable spending significant time on the floor
- Open to occasional travel and customer site visits
- Authorized to work in the U.S. without sponsorship; able to work on-site in Watertown five days a week
- IPC/WHMA-A-620 or IPC-A-610 familiarity
- PCBA schematic capture or layout; board bring-up and rework
- CAN, Ethernet, and industrial power distribution
- Experience with an MES or PLM in production
- Automotive, EV/battery, aerospace, or robotics harness background
Nice to Have
The Person
The Person
You love building things that didn't exist before, and you get real satisfaction from watching a design you finished get built by someone else without a single question.
You take ownership. Nobody has to tell you the harness drawing is late or the connector is wrong — you already saw it and you're already fixing it. Cabling and parts are your first priority, so they are never the reason the robot is late.
You stay curious. You want to know why a cable failed, not just replace it, and you're happy to learn from the technician who has built forty of them.
You hold a high bar and you're direct with your teammates when the design isn't ready, because you want the EEs, the floor, and the customer to win.
When the answer isn't obvious, you find the 80/20 path, make a smart call, and keep the product moving forward.
You never forget there's a customer on the other end of every robot, and a bad connector at a customer site is your problem.
Culture
We offer unlimited PTO and holidays. We host social events and maintain a collaborative, low-ego work culture where people are trusted to take ownership and solve real problems. Tutor is an equal opportunity employer and welcomes applicants from all backgrounds.
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