Electrical System Engineer

PAVE Space SA.; Villeneuve (VD); On-site; CHF 90,000 - 140,000; Full time

Job summary

PAVE Space SA. seeks a dedicated Electrical Power System engineer for a single-occupant EPS role on a Swiss satellite project. You will own the EPS from architecture to flight-ready hardware, including generation, storage, conversion, and distribution, with emphasis on margins and mission scenarios.

You will work on harness design, interfaces, and testing, collaborating with suppliers and the AIT team. On-site in Villeneuve (VD), English is the working language; French skills are a plus.

Qualifications

• 2+ years of spacecraft EPS or high-reliability power experience.
• Degree in Electrical Engineering or equivalent.
• Experience sizing solar arrays, batteries, PCUs/DC-DC converters.
• Ability to maintain power budgets and margins.
• Experience with harness design and documentation.
• Familiarity with EMC/EMI and grounding principles.
• Hands-on integration and testing with lab equipment.

Responsibilities

• Own the spacecraft Electrical Power System from design to flight-ready hardware.
• Define full power architecture: generation, storage, conversion, distribution.
• Produce and maintain power budgets and operating scenarios.
• Manage electrical interfaces and harness design.
• Lead supplier engagement from specification to non-conformance.
• Support AIT and test campaigns with troubleshooting.

Skills

Spacecraft EPS

Power system design

Systems integration

EMC/EMI

Lab testing

Supplier coordination

Education

Electrical Engineering degree

Tools

Oscilloscope

DMM

Electronic load

Power supplies

Job description

Our IOD mission is on the clock and the electrical power system needs a dedicated owner. Some architectural decisions have been made, but everything from supplier selection to harness design to qualification is ahead of you. You'll be the only electrical engineer on the team, working within a broader engineering group that supports you, but the EPS is yours to drive from the decisions already taken through to flight-ready hardware.

You will own

Size and specify the Electrical Power System: solar arrays, battery pack, and Power Converter Units, building on existing architectural choices and taking them to flight

Define the power architecture in full: generation, storage, conversion, distribution, including redundancy philosophy, protection, and power modes

Produce and maintain the power budget, power margins, and operating scenarios

Manage electrical interfaces between all subsystems: connectors, pinouts, ICDs, grounding, and return paths

Define and design the spacecraft harness, including routing constraints, shielding, segregation, drawings, and manufacturing documentation

Manage EPS component suppliers end to end: specification, procurement, technical follow-up, acceptance, and non-conformance handling

Contribute hands‑on to AIT and test campaigns: troubleshooting, functional tests, environmental testing support

What we are looking for

2+ years of proven experience in spacecraft EPS, avionics power, or high-reliability embedded power systems (space preferred)

Degree in Electrical Engineering, or equivalent experience that tells the same story

Experience sizing and selecting solar arrays, batteries, PCUs/DC-DC converters, and power distribution and protection elements

Ability to create and maintain power budgets, margins, and mission power mode concepts

Experience with harness design and documentation: connectors, pinouts, routing constraints, manufacturing drawings

Familiarity with EMC/EMI and grounding principles for mixed RF, power, and digital subsystems

Hands‑on experience with integration and testing, including lab equipment (PSU, electronic load, oscilloscope, DMM) and troubleshooting

Understanding of space constraints: thermal, radiation context, reliability, derating, workmanship

Fluent English (our working language)

Nice to have: experience with ECSS standards or similar space product assurance processes, battery safety and qualification exposure (cell selection, protection, charge management, abuse cases), experience defining EGSE and writing test procedures, TVAC and vibration test support from an electrical perspective, French language skills.

You will fit if

You want to be the single point of ownership for a spacecraft electrical system, not a contributor to one piece of it.

You're as comfortable negotiating specs with a supplier as you are routing a harness or debugging a power anomaly in the lab.

You make decisions with incomplete information when the timeline demands it, and you know how to protect margins while doing so.

You care about robustness and simplicity over clever design, because what you build has to work where nobody can fix it.

This is fully on‑site in Villeneuve (VD). You'll be the only electrical engineer, which means the scope is wide and the decisions are yours. Some architectural choices are already made, others are open, and supplier selection is entirely ahead of you. The timeline is tight and real. What makes that worth it: every watt generated, stored, and distributed on our IOD spacecraft will run through a system you selected, specified, and qualified, and you'll watch it power a mission on the most ambitious space programme in Switzerland.

We are building to ship, grounded on real hardware, real funding, real milestones.