Job Summary
Role: Sr. Electrical Engineer
Employment Type: Full Time
About the Role: Lead the architecture, design, and development of electronic systems for spacecraft and payload applications. Design and realise board-level hardware combining analog, digital, and power electronics for mission-critical space systems. Own the complete hardware lifecycle including requirements capture, trade studies, schematic design, component selection, PCB implementation, bring-up, validation, and release. Design flight PCBs for subsystems including electrical power systems, digital avionics, sensor and interface electronics, and payload support electronics.
Responsibilities
Power, Analog and Digital Engineering
- Design and analyse power electronic circuits including DC-DC converters, power distribution, protection, load switching, battery-related circuits, and power conditioning stages.
- Develop analog circuits such as signal conditioning, sensing, measurement, monitoring, filtering, reference generation, and control loops.
- Design and validate digital electronics involving processors, FPGAs, memory, level translation, clocks, reset architecture, housekeeping, and interface circuitry.
- Perform engineering analysis for power integrity, signal integrity, timing, grounding, noise coupling, thermal performance, and EMI/EMC behavior.
- Work with interfaces and protocols such as SPI, I2C, UART, CAN, /LVDS, SpaceWire, Ethernet, and other subsystem communication links.
Component Engineering and Reliability
- Perform component selection, derating analysis, worst-case analysis, tolerance analysis, and FMECA/FMEA for flight electronics.
- Drive design decisions with consideration for high reliability, fault tolerance, fail-safe operation, manufacturability, testability, and environmental robustness.
- Support part evaluation and trade studies for space-grade, rad-tolerant, and COTS components depending on mission needs.
- Review and define requirements for ESD protection, latch-up resilience, grounding strategy, isolation, and EMI/EMC performance.
PCB Realization and Hardware Bring-Up
- Work closely with PCB layout engineers to ensure robust implementation of mixed-signal layout practices, including partitioning, return current control, noise isolation, grounding, placement, and routing strategy.
- Review PCB layouts for power stages, sensitive analog circuits, high-speed digital interfaces, and flight-critical nets.
- Lead board bring-up, debugging, root-cause analysis, and design iteration using lab instrumentation such as oscilloscopes, power supplies, electronic loads, current probes, logic analyzers, multimeters, and thermal tools.
- Debug issues related to startup behavior, instability, interface errors, noise coupling, margins, and intermittent failures.
Testing, Integration and Documentation
- Develop test plans, test procedures, validation matrices, and operating procedures for board-level, subsystem-level, and integrated spacecraft electronics.
- Support hardware integration and verification across all program phases including development, cleanroom integration, qualification, launch preparation, and post-launch operational support.
- Generate and maintain documentation including requirements, interface control documents, design descriptions, analysis reports, test documentation, and manufacturing support packages.
- Work with software and systems teams to define hardware-software interfaces and support system-level validation.
Technical Leadership
Provide technical guidance during design reviews, failure analysis, and subsystem trade studies.
- Mentor junior engineers in good design practices for mixed-signal, power, and high-reliability electronics.
- Help strengthen internal standards, design methodologies, review checklists, and hardware development practices within the team.
Preferred Skills
- Strong fundamentals in analog electronics, digital electronics, and power electronics.
- Strong understanding of signal integrity, timing, grounding, EMI/EMC, power integrity, and thermal design.
- Familiarity with communication and interface standards such as SPI, I2C, UART, CAN, /LVDS, SpaceWire, or Ethernet.
- Experience with battery electronics, solar power interfaces, converter design, telemetry/housekeeping electronics, or payload support hardware.
- Familiarity with FPGAs, RTL concepts, clock/reset design, and digital system integration is a plus.
- Experience with high-reliability, aerospace, automotive, defense, or industrial electronics is preferred.
- Knowledge of ESD control and board-level protection design.
- Strong documentation, ownership, and cross-functional collaboration skills.