Applications Engineer- Hardware

Somerville, MA

Solutions and Applications Engineering

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Machines learned to understand language. We’re teaching them to understand matter.

Forty percent of global manufacturing happens through physical and chemical processes inside pipes, tanks, and reactors. Despite decades of industrial automation, much of what happens inside them remains remarkably invisible. Manufacturing is the most ubiquitous and foundational sector in global economy, yet the way factories are fundamentally run have used the same control philosophies, manual operations, and legacy software for the past 60 years.

Laminar deploys state-of-the-art patented sensors and edge hardware directly into live production environments, generating data that didn’t previously exist to build foundation models deployed in factory floors that understand chemistry, composition, quality, and material state in real time. We use that understanding to run autonomy and rethink how things are made.

The last generation of industrial automation taught machines to execute instructions reliably. The next will teach them to understand the processes they control and run autonomously, adaptively, and agentically: higher quality, safety, more efficiently, sustainably, and productively.

That future is already taking shape. Today, Laminar works with 7 of the world’s 10 largest food and beverage manufacturers and operates across hundreds of factories globally across six continents. Our systems have materially reduced waste, cut manufacturing downtime, saved water, chemicals, energy, and helped prevent safety and quality failures. Our technology has gained international recognition, from being selected as a 2026 World Economic Forum Technology Pioneer, Gold 2026 Edison Award, Unilever Startup of the Year, to Innovator Awards by both Coca-Cola and AB InBev, and more.

We are backed by tier-one investors in physical AI to make intelligent, self-improving production the new standard for industry.

Join us to build what makes matter intelligible, and the intelligible controllable.

As an Applications Engineer at H2Ok Innovations, you play a crucial role in being the primary liaison between our organization and our customers. You will work as a bridge between the sales, engineering, and management teams in the overall pursuit of customer success. We seek individuals who embody our core values: customer obsession, keen observation, creativity, resilience, and a relentless commitment to problem-solving. In this role, you will develop a deep understanding of our products to effectively tackle technical challenges, manage customer relationships, provide valuable product applications insights, and contribute to future use cases. You will be an integral member to the hardware team, advancing the capabilities that H2Ok Innovations can bring to its customers.

What You Will Do

Conduct market research through customer interactions, swiftly identifying significant customer challenges to inform product and business development strategies.
Engage directly with customers to manage deployments, lead sample testing, implement products, and ensure hardware specifications are met.
Understand how the processes work at a customer’s plant — e.g. reviewing diagrams, learning how their PLC system works, finding process variables of interest that may help our ML, understanding what processes are more critical to optimize, etc.
Support and educate customers post-deployment, ensuring successful adoption and scalability within their enterprises.
Deployment:
Lead and coordinate installations, collaborating with Field, Hardware, or Software Engineers.
Develop and execute processes for successful implementation and scalable roll-outs.
Travel on-site if needed before, during, or after deployment, ensuring seamless integration of our IoT technologies within customer environments.
Track deployment related deliverables and customer support requests (i.e. sensor installation, network configurations, PLC communication, site Q&A validations, etc.)Lead customer discussions regarding proper install.
Advise on ideal locations to implement H2Ok technology with respect to data collection and physical constrictions.
Applied Data Science:
Analyze and draw insights from proprietary data sets, contributing to informed decision-making.
Present data trends in a manner that shows value to the customer, with the ability to speak to technical and non-technical audiences.
Product Design and Testing:
Design product development guidelines based on customer and market needs, enabling the engineering team to align product features effectively.
Conduct experiments and tests on products for customer readiness and compatibility with field samples/data.
Communicate feedback and product feasibility to the team, contributing to continuous improvement and iteration.

About You

Ability to thrive in a fast-paced team environment with a high attention to detail and a keen eye for problem-solving.
Enthusiastic, positive, proactive and driven attitude (e.g., Ethernet/IP, Modbus RTU, 4-20mA, MQTT) with a security-oriented approach.
Experience in or willingness to learn Linux environments and Rasbian devices.
Comfortable with Physics and Chemistry topics, especially spectroscopy, spectral sensing, and image processing, as well as basic chemical engineering concepts.
Interest in sustainability and a startup environment, along with a strong technical grasp of engineering and science.
Experience working on cross-disciplinary projects involving software and hardware development, IoT, data science, wet lab testing, sensors, data security, and electrical component design.
Excellent soft skills for building relationships with customers at varying organizational levels.
Mechanical or Electrical Engineering background - trained in problem solving to aid strategic thinking and can discuss technical requirements with factory process engineers

Nice to Have

Industrial engineering or manufacturing experience.
Experience in networking and IT.
Exposure to PLC or SCADA systems in a manufacturing environment.
Bilingual (including Portuguese, Chinese, Japanese, French, or German) and can discuss technical requirements proficiently in multiple languages.

Benefits

Direct impact on product and culture.
Comprehensive benefits package including Medical, Dental, Vision, Life Insurance, Disability, Transportation benefit, Health and Wellness benefit, and more.
401k plan with employer matching
Competitive salary and bonus opportunities.
Dynamic and inclusive work environment.
Opportunities for growth and professional development.
Access to Greentown Labs' extensive network of cleantech startups.

Learn How We Think

Learn about our startup journey: Our Journey
How we're combating climate change: AI-Powered Climate Tech
A customer story: Ben & Jerry's uses H2Ok's precision automation to cut time & water usage

Why Laminar?

There are many easier places to work on AI. Laminar is for people who want the hardest version of their discipline. Models here must survive contact with physics. Hardware must survive years of continuous industrial operation. Software must integrate with machinery built decades ago. Everything we build ultimately has to work on a factory floor.

We believe exceptional people should be given exceptional amounts of ownership. At Laminar, you will have the context to form your own view, the permission to challenge ours, and the resources to pursue the right answers, whatever technical or organizational boundaries stand in the way. There are few layers between identifying something important and changing it.

We’re fortunate to work with a small polymathic team of hardware and software engineers, chemists, AI researchers, factory operators, and go-to-market wizards who are unusually capable, curious, rigorous, ambitious, and low-ego. If that sounds like you, we’d love to meet you.

Our Interview Process

1. Phone screen with Laminar HR/Recruiter (15-20 minutes)

2. Intro call with Hiring Manager (30 minutes)

3. On-site interview, overview of tech, and interview/presentation with the Hiring Manager and a few team members. Depending on the role, a skills exercise that should take no longer than an hour to prep, would be sent ahead of time. We record your skills exercise to share with any team members who could not join the interview and/or with Founder's ahead of their Founder's Interview. If you are not local, we can conduct this virtually.

4. Finalists for Full-Time positions will have a Founder’s Interview in-person

Final steps:

Two professional references are requested, ideally one from your current organization and one who served as your Manager

If an Offer Letter is extended, a Background check is conducted

Laminar is committed to building a diverse and inclusive team. Even if you are unsure you are a perfect fit, we strongly encourage you to apply! If you're ready to play a key role in scaling a game-changing company that’s transforming the industrial sector and advancing sustainability, we want to hear from you.

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