Acoustic Engineer

MistyWest | Vancouver, BC | Contractor

About the role

MistyWest is looking for a contract acoustic engineer to support several early-stage hardware programs where sound is central to the product. You’ll advise our engineering team and client partners on microphone integration, acoustic path design, and acoustic signal processing. The work spans early feasibility studies through to enclosure design.

What you’ll work on

• Help clients understand what’s technically possible when developing products which capture acoustic signals in real-world, noisy environments.
• Help MistyWest’s multi-disciplinary engineering team deliver products with excellent acoustic signal capture performance.

What you'll own

• Act as MistyWest’s acoustic subject-matter expert during business development, joining client calls to understand the problem and show technical credibility.
• Quickly judge technical feasibility: what can be achieved acoustically, what can’t, and where the main risks are (e.g., sensing through a sealed enclosure, detecting target sounds in noisy environments).
• Help shape the technical approach for proposals and pitches, including mic integration strategy, acoustic path concepts, array configurations and signal processing approach.
• Support scoping and estimation by breaking acoustic work into phases, flagging unknowns and suggesting effort and test needs, so sales can make confident, accurate quotes.
• Contribute to pitch materials with concept sketches, technical narratives, relevant references or prior art, and short write-ups that explain the approach in plain language.
• Where useful, run quick early-stage work to de-risk a deal, such as a desktop feasibility study, a literature review, simple bench recordings or a rough proof-of-concept analysis.
• Answer technical questions from clients and the internal team during the sales process, and help frame a sensible first phase of work.
• Advise our MistyWest’s multi-disciplinary engineering team to ensure successful implementation of good acoustic design during the project delivery phase.
• Where needed, directly drive forward acoustic design as a design engineer

Requirements

What you bring

• 5+ years designing acoustic systems for hardware products, with at least one product that shipped or reached late-stage prototype
• Broad expertise across microphone integration and acoustic path design (including sealed and waterproof enclosures), microphone arrays and acoustic signal processing
• Can assess feasibility quickly and give a confident, well-reasoned point of view without a full engineering program behind it
• Experience scoping acoustic work and estimating effort, risk and test requirements
• Strong communicator who explains complex acoustic concepts clearly to non-specialist clients and sales teams
• Comfortable in client-facing settings such as discovery calls, technical deep-dives and pitch meetings
• Available on a flexible, as-needed contract basis, often with short turnaround

Nice to have

• Consulting, pre-sales or technical advisory experience at an engineering services firm
• Portfolio of shipped products or published work they can reference to build client confidence
• Familiarity with sound-based sensing applications (e.g., flow sensing, acoustic event detection, in-vehicle audio)
• Based in or near Vancouver, for occasional in-person client meetings

Benefits

• Highly flexible: negotiate your own rates, hours and work location.
• Hardware & Software Access: MistyWest can provide equipment and software support where needed
• Try us out! Find out if MistyWest would be a good permanent employer for your needs and career direction
• Amazing Community: plug into a great local and global community of engineers and product design enthusiasts for events, projects, potential work & personal development.