Senior Application Engineer (Hardware)

Nex is on a mission to help families rediscover the joy of movement. Created by parents for parents, Nex combines technology and play to deliver fun, social, and interactive experiences powered by natural body motion, encouraging kids and adults to move more, play more, and have fun together. Nex Playground, the company’s award-winning active play system, is purpose-built to get families moving year-round, with safety and privacy as core considerations in its intentional design. It is certified kidSAFE+ COPPA compliant and built to support healthy, active play for all ages and abilities.

Nex Playground features a growing library of 50+ experiences, including motion and dance games, fitness and educational experiences, and Nex Originals. Content includes collaborations with partners like Hasbro, Sesame Workshop, and NBCUniversal. Nex has been recognized by Fast Company’s Most Innovative Companies, TIME’s Best Inventions, and Parents’ Best Entertainment System for Families, and has earned Red Dot, IDEA, and Core77 international design awards. We encourage you to explore Have Fun and Is Motion Gaming Back?, as they offer a deeper look into our culture, values, and explain how our approach to motion gaming differs from previous generations.

Location: Hong Kong / Remote
Type: Full Time
Reports to: VP of Platform

The Role

As Nex’s Senior Application Engineer in Hardware, you are part of a small but growing hardware engineering team that aims to expand and elevate our premium, versatile, and cutting-edge hardware platform for active play. Your role is to help guide hardware development and push technology boundaries by exploring, evaluating, and validating current and emerging hardware technologies, including SoC platforms, sensors, I/O devices, and other critical subsystems. You apply your industry knowledge, and hardware and software know-how, to research these technologies, build proof-of-concepts, and design experiments to identify their potentials and ceilings. You will also take part in product specification throughout the product lifecycle.

The Mindset

As a technology enthusiast, you are insatiably curious. You want to try every technology possible and never mind going to great lengths to achieve that, as you absolutely enjoy the process. You are simultaneously creative, critical, and methodical. You possess the ability to explain in depth everything you create. You search for meaning and purpose, and want to leverage your interests and skills in a creative endeavor that improves people’s lives.

What You'll Do

• Explore and evaluate current and emerging hardware technologies to build the team's foundational knowledge and competencies in hardware.


• Meet with technology vendors, and source and set up relevant developer kits for evaluation.


• Design and conduct experiments to assess hardware reliability and performance.


• Develop novel solutions and prototypes to demonstrate concepts and feasibility.


• Develop and adapt low-level hardware drivers.


• Support the development of new accessories, motion tracking technologies, and the Playground operating system.


• Contribute to defining and developing next-generation hardware.


• Provide consultation on the company’s hardware technology direction and strategy.


• Serve as a founding member of the hardware team and help attract future talent.

Must Have

• Bachelor’s degree in computer science, electronic engineering, or related fields.


• 5+ years of experience in embedded system development.


• Solid experience with firmware, driver, and HAL development.


• Solid experience in developing end-to-end hardware solutions that solve real-world problems.


• Solid experience in working with vision or non-vision sensors.


• Knowledge of Android or Linux operating systems, drivers, HALs, system debugging, and performance optimization techniques.


• Proficiency in C and Python.


• Proficiency in English and Mandarin Chinese communication.


• Desire to help other people succeed.

Nice To Have

• Domain knowledge of Arm architectures.


• Experience with deploying ML applications on the edge.


• Domain knowledge of camera sensors, lens optics, and ISPs.


• Hardware prototyping skills (ME & EE).


• Extensive list of hardware projects completed in a professional or personal capacity.


• Great empathy and a strong product mindset.


• Interest in venture business and startup life.


• Relevant industry connections

We Offer

• Competitive compensation package.


• Flexible working hours and vacation policy.


• Product-driven culture that treasures talents and individual growth.


• Front-row seat and hands-on experience with cutting edge technologies in the evolving gaming field

Nex is located in San Jose, California, USA and Hong Kong. Learn more about us at nex.inc/who-we-are.

We encourage applications even if you don’t meet more than 50% of the requirements — we believe that experience comes in many forms!