S

Sesame

Conveys real-time conversational voice interfaces

Electrical Engineer

Full-Time
$175k - $280k/yr
Expert
Bachelor's, Master's
San Francisco, CA, USA+1 moreMore locations: Bellevue, WA, USA
In Person
Hardware EngineeringHardware Systems Integration

About the job

Requirements
  • Experience working independently in high-ambiguity environments.
  • At least 10 years of experience owning and delivering complex electrical engineering designs.
  • At least 5 years of experience leading and delivering complex projects encompassing computing, electrical systems, sensors, power, mechanical systems, and firmware.
  • Experience shipping and supporting a complex product including sensors, compute, human-machine interface, and battery.
  • Strong fundamental electrical engineering skills across analog and digital domains, printed circuit board design, and simulation tools.
  • Familiarity with firmware development and ability to independently perform basic bring-up and debug code.
  • Excellent written and verbal communication skills.
  • A bachelor's or master's degree in Electrical Engineering, or equivalent.
  • Deep experience in at least one of battery, radio frequency, capacitive touch, audio, or image sensors.
  • Experience developing and shipping a wearable product, including machine perception or machine learning-powered features, with challenging power and form-factor constraints.
  • Experience selecting and guiding partners to augment development speed and bandwidth.
  • Familiarity with machine learning algorithms, data collection, and hardware acceleration.
  • Experience in a startup or research organization.
Responsibilities
  • Own and drive development of the electrical architecture, design, prototyping, and development of one or more hardware systems involving microcontrollers, systems-on-chip, field-programmable gate arrays, batteries, sensing, radio frequency, or audio.
  • Contribute to defining hardware processes and tool flows, and engage with and manage hardware vendors.
  • Serve as a domain expert in one or more areas of electrical design, such as audio, digital signal processing, batteries, radio frequency, or sensing.
  • Define hardware roadmaps, architectures, trade-offs, specifications, development plans, and evaluation methods for wearable electronics.
  • Perform hands-on printed circuit board assembly design and bring-up, including component selection, schematic design, layout, assembly, bring-up, testing, debugging, and integration into larger systems.
  • Collaborate with mechanical, firmware, software, user experience, and machine learning partners to define, evaluate, and optimize hardware systems.
  • Identify, evaluate, engage, and drive partners and vendors to accelerate hardware development.

About the company

S

Sesame

View
Website

Sesame creates voice-based companions that blend into daily life by combining advanced software with lightweight wearables. Its Conversational Speech Model (CSM) understands context in real time and responds with fluid, human-like timing, including pauses, breaths, and emotion. The hardware pieces include sleek glasses that stream high-quality audio from the voice companion, creating an always-present, non-intrusive assistant. The system integrates software, machine learning, and hardware to offer a voice interface that feels more like chatting with a friend than issuing commands. Unlike many voice systems that sound robotic, Sesame focuses on natural, intuitive speech that fits into everyday activities. The company aims to turn voice into a rich, everyday interface and provide a personal, conversational companion that is easily integrated into daily life.

Company Size

51-200

Company Stage

Series B

Total Funding

$317.7M

Headquarters

San Francisco, California

Founded

2023

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Simplify Jobs

Simplify's Take

What believers are saying

  • TechCrunch said Sesame's iOS app launched May 28, 2026, in 39 countries.
  • Over one million users tried the research preview within weeks, proving demand.
  • Sesame hired for Android, QA, and support, signaling mobile scale-up and device preparation.

What critics are saying

  • Meta, Google, and Apple dominate smart glasses; Sesame needs 2027 hardware success.
  • No API for production voice traps developers on open CSM-1B, limiting platform power.
  • A free preview with no paid tier risks viral usage without durable revenue.

What makes Sesame unique

  • Brendan Iribe's Oculus team pairs consumer hardware instincts with voice-model research.
  • CSM-1B is open Apache-2.0, letting developers inspect Sesame's speech stack.
  • Sesame's 2026 app uses multiple personalities and parallel search while speaking.

Help us improve and share your feedback! Did you find this helpful?

Benefits

  • 401(k) Company Match
  • Health Insurance
  • Dental Insurance
  • Vision Insurance
  • Unlimited Paid Time Off
  • Flexible Work Hours

Growth & Insights and Company News

Headcount

6 month growth

15%

1 year growth

15%

2 year growth

2%
GPT-3 Venture Fund
Oct 7th, 2026
Gemini platform upgrade, sesame Agents & ChatGPT meetings.

Gemini platform upgrade, sesame Agents & ChatGPT meetings. From the news archive. This article reflects its original publication date; linked sources and products may have changed. Google just doubled down on AI dominance - and the open-source community is getting a piece of it too. Welcome to AI News in a Minute, brought to you by Tavus, the future of interactive video. I'm Jerome W Dewald. This is Wednesday, October 7, 2026. Alphabet rolled out Nano Banana 2.1 across Gemini platforms, bringing visual and editing upgrades. It also released EmbeddingGemma 2 - its first open multimodal embedding model - giving developers a powerful new open-source tool to build with. Sesame AI launched Personal Agents - AI agents with their own dedicated computers. You can reach them via text, speech, or AI glasses. It's a full hardware-plus-software agent platform, signaling a major leap toward always-on personal AI. OpenAI is testing a Meetings plugin for the ChatGPT Mac desktop app. It records meetings and turns them into tailored notes - customized to each user's past work. It's the most personal productivity upgrade ChatGPT has seen yet. What's the difference between a digital twin and an AI replica? A digital twin mirrors a real system or process. An AI replica mimics a person. Tavus is pushing this distinction forward as personalized AI video and agent tech blurs the line between the two. That was your AI News in a Minute with Jerome W Dewald. Stay ahead in the AI race! Leave your thoughts about Alphabet's open multimodal model release in the comments, give this video a like, and hit subscribe so you don't miss tomorrow's AI News in a Minute! Continue the research. Enterprise AI A convincing simulation is a starting point. The research question is whether it becomes a repeatable part of how a customer works. Sep 7, 2026 Platforms & distribution Voice inside existing productivity tools raises a useful question: does the interface create new value, or move value to an existing platform? Sep 7, 2026 Research practice A simple working method for separating what happened, what it might mean, and what still needs to be proved. Sep 7, 2026 Better questions. Better decisions. What are you seeing that Gpt3 Venture Fund should be studying? Share a company, challenge an assumption, or talk research with Gpt3 Venture Fund.

Gadget ARQ
May 29th, 2026
Sesame, the conversational AI startup from Oculus founders, launches its iOS app.

Sesame, the conversational AI startup from Oculus founders, launches its iOS app. Sesame's new AI agents: A revolutionary approach to conversational AI. On Thursday, the AI startup Sesame, co-founded by Oculus' founders and others from the VR company that sold to Meta, released a public preview of the conversational AI agents it's been developing for over a year. With its new iOS app, Sesame is rethinking the traditional AI chatbot experience popularized by apps like ChatGPT, creating one where conversation flows, even if the AI needs time to think. As the company explains in its launch announcement, "There's an inherent tension between replying quickly and taking the time to compose thoughtful responses. A slower response is usually more correct, but it can also feel unnatural if it takes too long." Revolutionary conversational flow. To address this challenge, Sesame claims to have built fast search and retrieval systems, so the AI can have up-to-date information, as well as technology that allows it to run multiple parallel searches while speaking, weaving those results into its responses as it talks. That means the AI will talk more like a human, even pivoting mid-sentence if need be, as it taps into newer information - as a human might when remembering another key fact or point they want to add. Diverse AI agents. The app offers four distinct AI agents called Maya, Miles, Simone, and Charlie, each of which have their own distinct voice, personality, point of view, and memory. Maya and Miles were previously available in Sesame's Research Preview of its technology, where they were soon accessed by over a million people within the first few weeks, said Sesame investor Sequoia at the time. (The company had then just raised its $250 million Series B from Sequoia and others and was opening up a beta.) Enhancing user experience. During the beta, Sesame learned from user feedback and rolled out features such as search cards with image results for visualizing concepts, notes for capturing takeaways, a texting mode for those times when speaking aloud is not an option, and support for deep dives where you can get more in-depth results. There's also a new incognito mode for private conversations, which allows the agents access to prior context but saves nothing to memory. Future developments: beyond chatbots. The app, however, is only the first step toward Sesame's bigger plans for AI involving intelligent eyewear, which the team expects to launch in 2027. Before that, the agents will also learn to do more than just think with you, Sesame hints, suggesting they'll later be able to take action on your behalf - hence why they're called "agents" in the first place, instead of just chatbots. Implications for the future. That is potentially even more interesting, as working with agentic tools or apps today requires being able to prompt for what you need and have a specific idea of what you want to happen, and sometimes, even how it should happen. A conversational agent that you could talk to naturally could help you take the next steps, without you having to perfect the command you're giving it. The iOS app is out today in 39 countries, and the full experience is free for the time being. However, there still may be a short waitlist at sign-up. An Android preview is coming in the future, the company says. When you purchase through links in its articles, Gadgetarq may earn a small commission. This doesn't affect its editorial independence.

TechCrunch
May 28th, 2026
Sesame, Oculus founders' AI startup, launches iOS app with conversational agents

Sesame, an AI startup co-founded by Oculus founders, has launched the public preview of its iOS app featuring conversational AI agents. The app offers four distinct agents—Maya, Miles, Simone and Charlie—each with their own voice, personality and memory. Unlike traditional chatbots, Sesame's technology runs multiple parallel searches whilst speaking, allowing agents to pivot mid-sentence as new information emerges, mimicking natural human conversation. The app includes features such as search cards with images, note-taking, texting mode and incognito conversations. During beta testing, the agents were accessed by over one million people within weeks. Sesame raised $250 million in Series B funding from Sequoia and others. The company plans to launch intelligent eyewear in 2027 and will eventually enable agents to take actions on users' behalf. An Android version is coming soon.

VRSun
Oct 24th, 2025
Former Oculus Execs' AI Smart Glasses Startup 'Sesame' Raises $250M Series B Funding

Former Oculus execs' AI smart glasses startup 'Sesame' raises $250M Series B funding. October 24, 2025 From roadtovr Sesame, an AI and smart glasses startup founded by former Oculus execs, raised $250 million in Series B funding, which the company hopes will accelerate its voice-based AI. The news. As first reported by Tech Crunch, lead investors in Sesame's Series B include Spark Capital and Sequoia Capital, bringing the company's overall funding to $307.6 million, according to Crunchbase data. Exiting stealth earlier this year, Sesame was founded by Oculus co-founder and former CEO Brendan Iribe, former Oculus hardware architect Ryan Brown, and Ankit Kumar, former CTO of AR startup Ubiquity6. Additionally, Oculus co-founder Nate Mitchell announced in June he was joining Sesame as Chief Product Officer, which he noted was to "help bring computers to life." Sesame is currently working on an AI assistant along with a pair of lightweight smart glasses. Its AI assistant aims to be "the perfect AI conversational partner," Sequoia Capital says in a recent post. "Sesame's vision is to build an ambient interface that is always available and has contextual awareness of the world around you," Sequoia says. "To achieve that, Sesame is creating their own lightweight, fashion-forward AI-enabled glasses designed to be worn all day. They're intentionally crafted - fit for everyday life." Sesame is currently taking signups for beta access to its AI assistants Miles and Maya in an iOS app, and also has a public preview showcasing a 'call' function that allows you to speak with the chatbots. My take. Love it or hate it, AI is going to be baked into everything in the future, as contextually aware systems hope to bridge the gap between user input and the expectation of timely and intelligent output. That's increasingly important when the hardware doesn't include a display, requiring the user to interface almost entirely by voice. Some things to watch out for: if the company does commercialize a pair of smart glasses to champion its AI assistant, it will be competing for some pretty exclusive real estate that companies like Meta, Google, Samsung, and Apple (still unconfirmed) are currently gunning for. That puts Sesame at somewhat of a disadvantage if it hopes to go it alone, but not if it's hoping for a timely exit into the coming wave of smart glasses by being acquired by any of the above. There's also some pretty worrying precedent in the rear view mirror too: e.g. Humane's AI Pin or AI Friend necklace, both of which were publicly lambasted for essentially releasing hardware that could just as easily have been apps on your smartphone. Granted, Sesame hasn't shown off its smart glasses hardware yet, so there's no telling what the company hopes to bring to the table outside of the having an easy-to-wear pair of off-ear headphones for all-day AI stuff - that, to me, would be the worst case scenario, as Meta refines its own smart glasses in partnership with EssilorLuxottica, Google releases Android XR frames with Gentle Monster and Warby Parker, Samsung releases its own Android XR glasses, and Apple does... something. We don't know yet. Whatever the case, I'm looking forward to it, if only based on the company's combined experience in XR, which I'd argue any startup would envy as the race to build the next big computing platform truly takes off.

Tekmono
Oct 22nd, 2025
Sesame AI Raises $250 Million for Smart Glasses

Sesame AI raises $250 million for smart glasses. Sesame AI, a startup founded by Brendan Iribe, has secured $250 million in Series B funding, co-led by Sequoia Capital and Spark Capital, to develop its innovative voice assistant technology integrated into smart glasses. The company, established in June 2023 by Iribe, the former Oculus VR co-founder, boasts a team with a strong background in AI, speech technology, and consumer hardware. Iribe serves as CEO, alongside Ankit Kumar as CTO and Ryan Brown as a founding engineer. Sesame AI is focused on creating smart glasses with advanced conversational AI, featuring AI-powered voices named "Maya" and "Miles." These voices are designed to mimic the naturalism, rhythm, and emotional expression of human dialogue, setting a new standard for voice assistant technology. Following a highly successful early demo that garnered significant public interest, Sesame AI has launched a beta version of its smart glasses. The demo was remarkably popular, with over one million people accessing it and engaging in more than five million minutes of conversation with the AI. This level of engagement underscores the public's enthusiasm for Sesame's innovative approach to voice interaction. Sesame has also made its base AI model, CSM-1B, available for commercial use under an Apache 2.0 license. The 1-billion-parameter model powers the "Maya" assistant and is notable for its permissive licensing, which allows for broad application with few restrictions. By making CSM-1B accessible, Sesame is fostering a collaborative environment that could accelerate advancements in AI technology. The company's product is positioned as a lightweight, user-friendly device that prioritizes natural speech interaction. This approach is a deliberate strategy to differentiate Sesame's smart glasses from the more expensive and bulky VR headsets offered by competitors such as Meta and Apple. By focusing on ease of use and natural interaction, Sesame aims to carve out a unique niche in the market for its innovative smart glasses.