Research And Development Engineer

Senior Research & Development Engineer - RDE
Location: San Francisco (In-person)

Who We Are
Omen is miniaturizing lab-grade spectroscopy into field-deployable embedded
sensors. Our systems deliver PPM-level trace analysis reports on the fluids in
industrial machines and datacenters, allowing us to detect complex wear trends
like bearing failures or coolant contamination in real-time. With this data we can
automatically match anomalies with failure modes weeks to months before
catastrophic failure occurs.
Our team is a tightly knit group of ~20 builders, dropouts, and industry veterans.
We don’t build things that are good enough, we build things that are 100x better.

The Challenge
We are currently developing two primary systems:
Omen Scout: for closed-loop hydraulic and lubricating oils.
Omen Sentry: for direct-to-chip liquid cooling loops (typ. water/glycol
mixtures).
While our early-stage prototypes have proven the core viability of our
spectroscopy techniques, we need an R&D Engineer to act as our primary
explorer. You will focus on the fundamental physics of our optical and fluidic
systems, proving out new sensing modalities and taking early concepts from
whiteboards to working benchtop prototypes.

What You Will Do
Proof-of-Concept Development: Build and iterate early-stage benchtop
rigs to validate enhancements to our core tech (optics, fluid handling,
plasma generation) or explore new sensing modalities to add to our
portfolio (e.g., bio-sensing, turbidity, viscometry).
Push the Science: Identify the physical limits of our spectroscopy
techniques e.g. figure out exactly when and why an optical window fouls or
a plasma arc destabilizes in dirty fluids, and devising the fundamental
workarounds.
SoTA Scouting: Keep a constant pulse on the state-of-the-art in fluid
sensing, photonics, and physical chemistry.

What We Are Looking For
Deep theoretical and practical knowledge in applied physics, optical
engineering, or physical chemistry.
Action biased i.e. prefers building a rough prototype to test a hypothesis
more often than not. Zero-to-One type individuals.
First-principles problem solving that relies on fundamental physics rather
than off-the-shelf reference designs.
Ability to use both ECAD and MCAD is a must. We use Altium and
Solidworks respectively.
Prior experience in other fields of spectroscopy is a plus

Why Omen?
We take the physics seriously, but we don’t let red tape slow us down. If you want
to own a fascinating hardware problem from the ground up and build something
that protects the most expensive infrastructure on the planet, we want to talk to
you.