Field Engineering Technician

Instawork is on a mission to create meaningful economic opportunities for skilled hourly professionals in communities around the globe. Our AI-powered labor marketplace helps local businesses scale, and enables global technology companies to push the frontiers of robotics and AI. Backed by world-class investors like Benchmark, Spark Capital, Craft Ventures, Greylock, Y Combinator, and others, we’re looking for exceptional talent to reimagine the way the world works.

Instawork’s on-demand labor marketplace is uniquely valuable for robotics and physical AI. We’re working with leading frontier labs to create the highest-quality, highest-diversity datasets for training robotics foundation models. Instawork Robotics is the human advantage in the robotics revolution. 

We are seeking a highly skilled, part-time Field Engineering Technician to manage the maintenance, calibration, and local deployment of a fleet of 600 custom wearable camera rigs. Unlike standard IT support, this role sits at the intersection of precision electronics, mechanical assembly, and field operations. You will be the primary guardian of our hardware integrity, ensuring that high-stakes egocentric data collection continues without interruption across various deployment sites.

About IRL

Researchers at UC Berkeley have identified a “100,000-year data gap” - the gulf between what trained AI language models and what physical robots actually have to learn from. Closing that gap is the defining infrastructure challenge of the physical AI era. IRL is Instawork’s answer to it. We deploy skilled workers into real commercial and residential environments - kitchens, warehouses, hotel floors, homes - to capture the high-fidelity task data that the world’s leading Robotics labs use to train their foundation models. Read more here .

Who You Are:

A problem-solver who enjoys troubleshooting, working with physical devices, and finding creative solutions to problems quickly. 

• Education: ITI or Diploma in Electronics, Mechatronics, or Electrical Engineering.
• Experience: proven background in repairing "small-form-factor" electronics (e.g., smartphones, drones, or action cameras)
• Technical Skills: high dexterity with precision hand tools, multimeters, and soldering stations
• Safety: deep understanding of ESD (Electrostatic Discharge) safety protocols
• Software:  comfortable navigating Linux/Windows-based diagnostic shells and firmware update tools.
• Mobility must possess a valid two-wheeler license and a personal vehicle for local travel.
• A hard worker who is comfortable working in new and different field environments, and adapting to new hardware and systems. 
• An operator who is experienced with the basics of hardware maintenance and support.
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Nice-to-haves:

Experience supporting robotics, sensors, wearables, cameras, or prototype hardware systems. Experience with firmware flashing, Linux, Android, embedded devices, or basic networking. Experience at an early-stage or mid-stage startup. Basic electrical, mechanical, or hardware assembly experience. Comfort building with AI tools like Cursor and Claude Code

What You’ll Do:

• Field Hardware Support. Maintain and troubleshoot deployed data collection systems, including cameras, sensors, batteries, storage media, cables, mounts, and wearable equipment.
• Device Configuration. Perform hardware setup, provisioning, firmware flashing, software updates, calibration, and readiness checks prior to deployment.
• Issue Resolution. Diagnose and resolve day-to-day technical issues in the field, document recurring failures, and escalate more complex problems to engineering teams.
• Repair & Refurbishment. Replace damaged or worn components, manage spare parts inventory, and prepare returned systems for rapid redeployment.
• Operator Enablement. Support field operators with fit adjustments, setup guidance, charging workflows, and best practices to ensure reliable data capture.
• Cross-Functional Collaboration. Coordinate with robotics leadership, data ops, QA, and engineering teams to continuously improve hardware reliability, usability, and field performance.

Our Values 

• Empathy, Trust & Candor
  We put ourselves in the shoes of our colleagues and customers and don’t shy away from uncomfortable conversations, instead building trust through honest and direct feedback.

• Bias for Action
  We practice high-velocity decision-making, clear-eyed that we often operate with incomplete information. Growing quickly means it’s OK to be wrong, so long as we learn from our mistakes and course correct!

• Always Be Learning
  We’re a curious bunch, and with AI transforming our workplace we encourage everyone to learn from each other, compounding our knowledge and experience to help us change an entire industry.

• Act Like an Owner
  We work long, hard, and smart, building products that delight our users and drive growth. Your ability to impact Instawork is limited only by your courage and conviction, not your job description.

About Instawork

Founded in 2015,  Instawork is the nation’s leading online labor marketplace for food services, hospitality, light industry, and logistics, connecting more than 7M skilled workers with local restaurants, hotels, warehouses, stadiums, and more. Our AI-powered platform serves thousands of businesses across more than 50 major markets in the United States and Canada. We're not just helping fill shifts, we're supporting local economies—and we're just getting started!

Instawork has been featured by CBS News, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, and the Associated Press. Forbes included us on their Next Billion Dollar Startups list; RetailTech Breakthrough named us Workforce Hiring Solution of the Year for 2025; and Inc. 5000 recognized us as one of the country's top 10% fastest-growing companies two years in a row. But what matters most is our impact. We're solving real problems for real people, and we’re doing it at scale.

Join our team to help us build something that matters! We’re looking for superstars who want to help us shape the future of work. With hubs in San Francisco, Bangalore, and Chicago, city offices in New York, Phoenix, and Singapore, we're back to working together in-person five days a week because we believe the best ideas happen when great people collaborate face-to-face. We also value diverse perspectives and encourage applications from candidates of all backgrounds.