Electronic & Hardware Engineer

Nudge Innovations is a Scottish sustainability hardware startup making reusable coffee cups genuinely practical at scale. Our first product, NuWash, is an automated cup cleaning unit, an electromechanical appliance that cleans a reusable cup, or bottle and lid in 35 seconds, with up to 99% bacteria reduction under real-world conditions. We hold a UK patent, have CE marking, and have units live in commercial deployment. We're backed by Scottish Enterprise and recently won Scottish EDGE.

We're a small, capable team moving fast. This is a hands-on role at a critical point in the company's development.

Nudge is a small Scotland-based team building NuWash, an automated cup cleaning appliance. We've completed our first commercial deployments and are now preparing for volume manufacture.

We're looking for an electronics engineer to lead the next stage of that journey: consolidating and redesigning our PCBA. This is our primary cost-down lever ahead of scaling production, and it sits at the centre of the role rather than alongside it.

You would be the electronics function at Nudge. You'll work directly with the CTO, and your decisions will carry through to mass manufacture. This is a genuine ownership position rather than a support role.

The role also includes:

• Managing compliance re-submission
• Working directly with our manufacturing partner through NPI
• Contributing to our IoT roadmap, including remote monitoring and a data product for customers
• Visiting live deployment sites periodically to understand field performance and feed that insight back into the design

We're working towards a dedicated service partner model for site visits, so this is a current-phase responsibility rather than a permanent fixture of the role.

This position suits someone who wants significant responsibility early in their career, leading meaningful design decisions rather than working within an established structure.

• Lead consolidation of NuWash's electronics, moving off-shelf power control components onto a unified PCBA, using the current board as a reference design
• Own circuit design, component selection, and PCB layout for the redesigned system
• Manage compliance re-submission (CE/UKCA) for the redesigned electronics
• Work directly with our EMS manufacturing partner through NPI and production handover
• Extend the platform for IoT enablement, sensor integration and remote monitoring capability
• Maintain technical design documentation; schematics, requirements, and test procedures
• Diagnose and debug issues on live-deployed units, including site visits as required
• Work closely with the CTO and product design engineer to align electronics decisions with mechanical and DfM constraints

• 2-5+ years of evident industry experience applying electronics engineering to physical products
• Strong analogue and digital electronics hardware design experience, including component selection and circuit design
• Proficient with schematic capture and PCB design software
• Comfortable working from existing schematics and design files to lead a clean-sheet redesign
• Embedded firmware experience
• Hands-on diagnosis and debug of new and existing electronic designs, including in the field
• Able to work independently and manage a complex project with a tight timeline
• Based in Scotland or willing to relocate

• Experience with EMS partner relationships and NPI processes
• IoT hardware experience, connectivity and sensor integration
• Experience on water-handling or fluid-adjacent appliances
• Design for Manufacture (DfM) awareness
• Proven experience taking a product through CE/UKCA compliance. Ideally, on appliances with heating elements or similar regulatory complexity
• Previous experience working within a small or early-stage company

Why Join Us

• Be the first electronics hire at a funded, patent-holding hardware startup
• Own a complete PCBA redesign from day one, a real project with a clear brief, not support work
• Scottish EDGE winner 2026, backed by Scottish Enterprise, live commercial deployment in Edinburgh
• EMI equity participation as the company scales