Vehicle Integration Engineer

Role Requirements

Title: Electrical Integration Engineer

Retrofitting machines, designing electrical systems for various platforms

Candidate Requirements

Must have strong electrical engineering background, designing platforms for multiple machines

Experience with CAN and J1939 stack implementation; knowledge of electronics is a plus

Company Context

Focus on creating multi-purpose solutions for different machines

Separate teams for autonomy application and platform development

Compensation and Logistics

US salary range: $140K - $180K; suggestion to increase to $200K

Open to candidates in London; compensation range: 120K - 180K

Timeline and Urgency

Role to be launched immediately; recruiters will start sourcing in five business days

Pain Points

Difficulty finding candidates with the right mix of automotive and robotics experience

Need candidates who can bridge electrical and vehicle integration roles

Ideal Candidate Profile

Automotive or robotics experience is crucial

Adaptable with a mix of technical and hands-on skills

Dealbreaker

Work experience

Experience designing hardware components for heavy machinery

Education

Bachelors degree required

Hard skills

Experience integrating hardware and mechanical mounting brackets onto vehicles or machinery

Understanding of CAN wiring (CAN bus) and vehicle electrical systems

Miscellaneous

Ability to work hybrid in Austin, TX or London and travel to customer sites (up to 25% travel)

Baseline

Seniority

3 - 8 years of experience as a vehicle integration engineer

Work experience

Experience with machine retrofits of existing vehicles

Hard skills

Wiring harness assembly, crimping, connector, and troubleshooting skills

Experience using multimeters, power supplies, hand tools, and workshop equipment

Nice-to-have

Work experience

Experience at automotive, autonomous driving, or robotics companies (Tesla, Anduril, Waymo, FieldAI)

About this role:

We are looking for a Vehicle Integration Technician with 4+ years of experience to turn Hive Autonomy's standard retrofit kits into working autonomous machines on real industrial vehicles. We need a hands-on, multi-skilled builder from automotive, robotics, autonomous driving, or heavy machinery who can install a full hardware stack (electrical, mechanical, and CAN) on a specific machine. Hive plans to retrofit 200+ vehicle platforms over the next four years, including forklifts, wheel loaders, and diggers of every brand. You'll be one of the first technical hires at the new Austin hub, and you'll help write the playbook for deploying autonomy in the US.

What will you be doing?

Adapting Hive's standard platform hardware (power distribution, harnesses, sensors, compute, controllers) to fit each machine model. Most of the kit already exists, and you'll engineer the last 10% that makes it fit.

Building and installing wiring harnesses, connectors, mounting brackets, sensors, and actuators on vehicles, then bringing them up through continuity, voltage, power, and CAN/J1939 checks.

Going to customer sites to scope what each retrofit needs, then running installation, commissioning, debugging, and acceptance testing.

Troubleshooting integration problems across the electrical, mechanical, and software layers, and sending clear change requests back to the platform engineering teams.

Recording build issues and lessons learned to make Vehicle Adapter Kits better and more repeatable. ECU or low-level embedded programming experience is a big plus.

What to ask candidates:

Why do I think they'd be a great fit?

Can you describe your hands-on experience with wiring harness assembly, crimping, and troubleshooting electrical systems on vehicles or heavy machinery?

This role requires reading and interpreting electrical schematics and mechanical drawings. How would you rate your proficiency in this area?

This is a hybrid role based in Austin, Texas, and requires about 25% travel to customer sites. Are you able to meet these location and travel requirements?

Are you able to work hybrid in Austin Texas and travel to customer sites about 25% of the time?

Walk us through a vehicle or robot you've retrofitted with hardware. What wiring harness and mounting work did you personally own?

Can the candidate be on-site? If not, is the candidate willing to relocate?

What is their salary expectation?

How actively is this candidate exploring new opportunities?