Who gets hired and onto which teams
Human Archive, a Y Combinator W26 startup that deploys wearable camera rigs on factory floors and commercial kitchens across three countries, has 21 open roles with a median posting lifetime of six days, and no remote option. The company hires for a limited number of highly capable roles; candidates must demonstrate deep technical competence and the ability to thrive in a lean, fast-moving environment to be considered. Its org chart reflects that priority: a data-collection operation that builds its own sensors, ships them to those locations, and trains models on the resulting video. The startup lists eight openings in engineering, eight in operations, and the rest split across sales, marketing, people, and a single executive slot. Momentum has cooled — net zero new postings over the last 28 days — but the pipeline stays active because the work cannot be done remotely.
The engineering team is hardware-first by necessity. The board lists a Head of Engineering (San Francisco or India, $140–210K), an Embedded / Electrical Engineer (India, ₹2.5–4M), a Firmware Engineer (India, ₹2.2–3.5M), a Mechanical Engineer - Wearable Systems (India, ₹1.8–3M), and an Industrial Designer (San Francisco, $80–110K). A QA / Hardware Test Engineer (India, ₹1.8–3M) rounds out the hardware-validation side. The only pure software role on the board is a Research Engineer slot on the company's own careers page, targeting candidates with master's- or PhD-level work in video understanding and egocentric data — the same profile the founders highlighted when they called the India research hire "one of the best research opportunities to exist in India." The research bench in San Francisco already includes alumni of NYU GRAIL, UPenn GRASP, Berkeley, Johns Hopkins, Stanford, and national robotics competition winners. They work seven-day weeks building internal models.
Operations is the largest function by headcount target. LinkedIn posts from the founding team reveal a wider aperture than the single Operations Manager role on the board: 20 Operations Managers on-site in India, half earmarked for 2025/2026 graduates with zero work experience. The company also seeks a Head of Operations / Manufacturing, an Infrastructure Engineer, and a Generalist: roles that collectively own the logistics of deploying wearable camera kits to 20-plus data categories spanning food service, hospitality, industrial, construction, and creative trades. A separate push aims to hire five "cracked partnerships/sales people" in India to convert 100-plus unique businesses per month. The sales funnel is explicit: the company pays "extremely well for data collection" and frames the partnerships role as high-autonomy, high-travel, six-day weeks with "liberty to build ur team."
Baseline qualifications diverge sharply by track. Research and hardware roles demand depth: published work in computer vision, embedded systems, or mechanical design for wearable form factors. Operations and sales roles invert the filter: "Ops experience is optional, we train you from day one. Ownership is not trainable." The founders explicitly discourage "MBA/corporate coded type" candidates for partnership roles, preferring operators who can live out of a bag and manage field teams across Indian cities. For the 20 Operations Manager seats, the only hard requirement is willingness to travel; the company covers all travel, food, and commute, and promotes from within (Regional Manager at roughly eight months, City Head at 18). The Videographer role (India, ₹1.3–2.5M) sits at the intersection: part content creation, part field documentation, requiring fluency in tools like Final Cut and a portfolio across fashion, music, wellness, or tech.
The common thread across every function is physical presence. Human Archive collects data by putting cameras on people doing real work — carpentry workshops, resort kitchens, factory assembly lines — because "robots can't learn this stuff from the internet. Someone has to go record it." That constraint shapes the org: lean, distributed, and biased toward people who treat travel and hardware iteration as default modes, not exceptions. The team built seven distinct hardware products in-house, starting from iPhones and iterating to custom rigs and camera-equipped caps, and now runs internal model training on the resulting multimodal datasets.
What it pays
Human Archive compensates aggressively for a team of its size. The company's own LinkedIn page states it plainly: "We pay extremely well for data collection. It is money that is hard to turn down." That posture shows up in the posted bands across both U.S. and India roles, with equity attached to the U.S. positions and a fixed-salary model in India that explicitly rejects variable bonuses or retention bonds.
U.S. roles: San Francisco
Two U.S.-based openings carry dollar-denominated bands and equity grants. The Head of Engineering, Zero G Talent's board data shows, spans $140K–$210K base with 0.25%–2.00% equity, requiring six-plus years of experience. The Industrial Designer, according to Zero G Talent's board data, runs $80K–$110K base with 0.10%–0.30% equity and is open to new graduates. Both roles list San Francisco as the primary location, though the Head of Engineering posting also notes India as an option.
| Role | Base salary (USD) | Equity range | Experience floor |
|---|---|---|---|
| Head of Engineering | $140K–$210K | 0.25%–2.00% | 6+ years |
| Industrial Designer | $80K–$110K | 0.10%–0.30% | New grads ok |
The equity spread on the Head of Engineering role is unusually wide for a single title — 0.25% at the low end versus 2.00% at the high end suggests the grant scales with seniority, scope, or both. A candidate stepping into a de facto VP Engineering function at a 100-person W26 company would reasonably land toward the top of that band; a strong senior lead might sit closer to the bottom.
India roles: rupee-denominated bands
The bulk of current openings sit in India and are priced in INR. Zero G Talent's board data matches the Y Combinator listings exactly:
| Role | Base salary (INR/yr) | Experience floor |
|---|---|---|
| Embedded / Electrical Engineer | ₹2.5M–₹4M | 3+ years |
| Firmware Engineer | ₹2.2M–₹3.5M | 3+ years |
| QA / Hardware Test Engineer | ₹1.8M–₹3M | 6+ years |
| Mechanical Engineer - Wearable Systems | ₹1.8M–₹3M | 3+ years |
| Operations Manager | ₹1.5M–₹3M | New grads ok |
| Videographer | ₹1.3M–₹2.5M | New grads ok |
The Embedded / Electrical Engineer band tops the India list at ₹4M (roughly $48K at current rates), reflecting the hardware depth the company needs for its wearable sensor deployments. Firmware sits just below. QA / Hardware Test carries a six-year floor — unusually high for a test role — which signals that the validation surface is complex enough to demand senior judgment, not just script execution.
A separate LinkedIn post cites a broader "20–40 LPA + bonuses" range (₹2M–₹4M) and another notes "₹4.2–7 LPA, 100% fixed, no variable, no bond." The latter band (₹420K–₹700K) sits well below the posted engineering roles and may reflect junior or non-technical positions not currently advertised on the board. The "no bond" clause is notable in the Indian market, where service agreements with clawback periods are common; Human Archive appears to be avoiding that friction.
Equity mechanics
Only the two U.S. roles publish equity ranges. The India postings list none, consistent with early-stage U.S. companies granting RSUs or options primarily to U.S.-based employees for tax and administrative simplicity. If India-based hires receive equity, it is not disclosed in the public postings. Candidates should ask directly, as the Head of Engineering band (0.25%–2.00%) implies a total option pool large enough to support meaningful grants across the leadership layer, but the company has not published its pool size or refresh policy.
Benefits and structure
Public data on benefits is thin. That line from LinkedIn suggests a clean cash compensation model without performance bonuses, sign-on incentives, or retention clawbacks (at least for the roles that fall in that ₹4.2–7 LPA band). The engineering bands above ₹1.8M show no variable component in the posted data either. Standard Indian statutory benefits (PF, gratuity, ESI where applicable) would apply by law, nor has it published details on health insurance, hardware allowances, relocation, or remote-work stipends.
Context: team size discrepancy
Y Combinator lists "Team Size: 100" for the W26 batch. BuiltIn reports 18 total employees. LinkedIn shows "2–10 employees." The compensation bands reflect a company operating at the higher end of that range — ₹4M for a senior embedded engineer is a real budget commitment — but the headcount uncertainty means the equity denominator is opaque. A 2% grant at 100 people is a very different slice than 2% at 18.
Candidates should treat the posted bands as the floor for negotiation. The company's own phrasing, describing the compensation as hard to refuse, signals they expect to compete with larger labs on cash, not just mission.
How the hiring process works
Human Archive runs a rolling, high-velocity pipeline. The company states plainly: "We review applications on a rolling basis and move quickly." That tempo reflects a YC W26 batch cadence: founders Rushil Agarwal, Samay Maini, Shloke Patel, and Raj Patel are building a physical-AI data operation that deploys wearable cameras on factory floors, kitchens, resorts, and carpentry workshops, and they need people who can operate at the same speed their data-collection crews do.
Stage 1: Application intake and digital footprint review
Every application lands in a single queue reviewed directly by the hiring team: no external recruiter, no ATS keyword filter. The first screen is a review of online presence and past content. For the Videographer role (INR 1.3M–2.5M/yr), the company explicitly lists: "That review; Portfolio and past work evaluation (long-form, short-form, and viral)." That same lens applies across functions: engineers are expected to show public repositories, hardware build logs, or documented test campaigns; operations candidates should demonstrate logistics or field-coordination artifacts.
Stage 2: Portfolio or technical work evaluation
The second gate is a structured work review. Creative roles face a portfolio audit across those formats: the team wants evidence of creative instincts, speed, and editing chops in one sitting. Engineering roles (Embedded / Electrical Engineer at INR 2.5M–4M/yr, Firmware Engineer at INR 2.2M–3.5M/yr, Mechanical Engineer - Wearable Systems at INR 1.8M–3M/yr, QA / Hardware Test Engineer at INR 1.8M–3M/yr) are evaluated on documented hardware work. The Head of Engineering (USD 140K–210K/yr, San Francisco / IN) and Industrial Designer (USD 80K–110K/yr, San Francisco) reviews weigh system-level thinking and design-for-manufacture artifacts over academic projects.
Stage 3: Short, high-signal interview
Candidates who clear the work review get a short interview focused on instincts, speed, and ownership. The Videographer job posting calls it out: "Short interview focused on creative instincts, speed, and editing skills." For operations roles, the conversation probes whether the candidate has ever owned an outcome end-to-end without a playbook. The team writes that training starts on day one and ownership cannot be taught. That line is the filter: candidates who describe process adherence instead of outcome ownership tend to stall here.
Stage 4: Reference and velocity check
The final step is a rapid reference check and a mutual velocity alignment. The company needs people who can ramp in days, not months.
What disqualifies
Candidates without public proof of work (a resume without a portfolio, repo, or documented project) are treated as incomplete. Candidates who lead with methodologies instead of shipped results, or who need extended time to learn the stack before contributing, rarely advance. The pipeline is unforgiving by design. With 8 roles live on the Zero G Talent board as of October 2026 (spanning hardware, firmware, mechanical, QA, industrial design, videography, operations, and engineering leadership), the company hires for immediate leverage. Half the operations cohort are new grads; the engineering hires are expected to contribute immediately.
Where the work happens
Human Archive operates across two primary sites: a hardware-heavy engineering hub in India and a design-and-leadership outpost in San Francisco. The split maps directly to the company's product architecture. Wearable robotics demands tight integration between mechanical design, embedded firmware, electrical layout, and test validation. That work clusters where the talent density for those disciplines runs deep and the cost structure supports a team that, as of the current board data, spans at least seven salaried roles in India alone.
The India location carries the bulk of execution. Every core engineering discipline appears there: Mechanical Engineer - Wearable Systems, Embedded / Electrical Engineer, Firmware Engineer, and QA / Hardware Test Engineer. Those four roles form a complete vertical: design the mechanism, lay out the board, write the firmware, validate the build. The presence of an Operations Manager and a Videographer in the same geography signals a site that handles procurement, logistics, and documentation in-house rather than outsourcing.
San Francisco plays a different role. The Head of Engineering is listed as "San Francisco, CA, US / IN" at USD 140K–210K/yr, a dual-location designation that typically means the role splits time between sites or hires into one with authority over both. The Industrial Designer sits in San Francisco at USD 80K–110K/yr. That pairing, engineering leadership and industrial design, in the Bay Area is a deliberate signal: the human-facing form factor, the brand-carrying aesthetic, and the cross-functional architecture decisions live where the consumer-hardware design community concentrates.
No public filing or company blog post details the exact addresses, lab square footage, or equipment lists for either site. The job postings themselves are the highest-resolution map available. They show a company that has chosen to concentrate hardware integration in India while keeping design direction and engineering leadership in San Francisco. The Head of Engineering role's dual-location tag is the only explicit bridge; everything else infers coordination across a 12.5-hour time difference.
For a candidate, the implication is practical. Roles in India will operate with high autonomy on daily hardware bring-up, test fixture development, and supplier coordination. Roles in San Francisco will operate with high visibility on product definition, investor-facing demos, and the cross-site architecture reviews that keep the two hubs from diverging. The company's founders have not publicly stated which site each occupies, but the hiring pattern suggests at least one founder anchors each location. The board data shows four founders for roughly nine posted roles; a founder-per-site ratio that high is a governance choice, not a scaling artifact.
The facilities themselves remain undescribed in public sources. No cleanroom class, no motion-capture volume, no ESD-safe bench count. What the postings reveal is functional: a site that can hire across the full stack of wearable robotics in India, and a site that can hire design and engineering leadership in San Francisco. That is the facility spec that matters at this stage.
Who thrives here
The people who last at Human Archive share a specific profile: they are builders who have already operated at the intersection of hardware, sensor fusion, and large-scale data systems, and they prefer the chaos of a founding team to the structure of a larger org. Founders Raj Patel (CEO), Samay Maini, Rushil Agarwal, and Shloke Patel all came out of robotics and tactile-data labs at Berkeley and Stanford. Their first hires mirror that pedigree.
The operational tempo is relentless. The company founded in 2026, graduated Y Combinator's W26 batch, raised $8.2 million in May 2026, and by July was calling it their "best month yet" while doubling down alongside leading AI labs. They run two offices (India and a newly opened San Francisco location) with 18 total employees per BuiltIn's count (LinkedIn shows 2–10). That ratio of surface area to headcount means every engineer touches hardware, every operations manager coordinates field deployments across multiple cities, and every sales hire navigates a partner landscape that already rejected them once. The culture treats "no" as a signal to move faster, not a reason to pivot.
Mission alignment filters for a specific kind of ambition. The company's LinkedIn description frames the work as "modeling human embodied intelligence" to "accelerate automation, increase global abundance, shift human effort toward creativity and exploration, and advance how we understand the brain." That language attracts researchers who want their data to touch robots in the real world, not just benchmarks. People who thrive here treat that external validation as a milestone, not the goal — the goal is the next hardware iteration, the next synchronization fix, the next deployment cycle. By the time Human Archive releases its egocentric dataset (the one every major lab is already queuing up to run experiments on), the rigs will be in their next iteration, and the team deploying them will look different. But the filter will be the same: people who ship without a spec sheet.
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