Hardware and Electrical Designer

Hashlist; Boston (MA); Hybrid; USD 96,000 - 124,000; Part time

Job summary

Hashlist in Massachusetts is seeking a freelance hardware engineer to build and evaluate benchmark environments for electrical boards. You will gather schematics, BOMs, datasheets, and measurements, and set up KiCad/ngspice toolchains with Python scripts for automated marking.

You will create tasks built on real design decisions, frame simulations, and provide answer.json with corrected components and margins.

Qualifications

• Hands-on experience designing or debugging boards or electrical systems.
• Strong command of component selection and datasheet limits, including temperature, ripple and derating.
• Experience with power supply stability, phase margin and thermal analysis.
• Working knowledge of EMC and conducted emissions measurement.
• Able to work from schematics, layout files or Gerbers, and BOMs.
• Comfortable with ngspice or another SPICE simulator and KiCad.
• Python skills to write automated marking scripts.

Responsibilities

• Build a benchmark environment around a board or electrical system you have designed or debugged.
• Include schematics, layout excerpts or Gerbers, the BOM, component datasheets, measurement data, and the design constraints.
• Provide measurements as data files – scope captures as CSV, thermal readings as tables, EMC scans as frequency and level data – with images as supporting material.
• Set up the tools the work needs – ngspice or another SPICE simulator, KiCad, Python, PDF tools.
• Write five or more tasks, each built on a design decision or failure on that board.
• Frame each task so the model must run calculations or simulations and produce answer.json with the faulty component or net, corrected values, and margins.
• Write a hidden marking script that checks values within tolerance and runs a supplied SPICE netlist.
• Design tasks around a part that looks right on paper but breaks a datasheet limit under temp/ripple/airflow.
• Supply your own answer and a naive answer for comparison.
• Hands-on experience designing or debugging boards or electrical systems
• Strong command of datasheet limits, including temperature, ripple and current derating.

Skills

Circuit design

Board debugging

Power analysis

EMC testing

Thermal analysis

Spice simulations

Python scripting

Tools

KiCad

Ngspice

Python

PDF tools

Job description

• Location: Massachusetts
• Working model: Hybrid
• Employment type: Freelance – hourly rate: $70–90 (paid per accepted task)
• Build a benchmark environment around a board or electrical system you have designed or debugged
• Include schematics, layout excerpts or Gerbers, the BOM, component datasheets, measurement data, and the design constraints (cost, size, temperature, standards)
• Provide measurements as data files – scope captures as CSV, thermal readings as tables, EMC scans as frequency and level data – with images as supporting material
• Set up the tools the work needs – ngspice or another SPICE simulator, KiCad, Python, PDF tools
• Write five or more tasks, each built on a design decision or failure on that board (e.g. a regulator that oscillates at light load, filter values that push conducted emissions over the limit after a layout change, a component that derates past its limit inside the enclosure)
• Frame each task so the model must run calculations or simulations and produce answer.json with the faulty component or net, corrected component values, a part chosen from a supplied shortlist, and computed margins (phase margin, derated current, junction temperature or similar)
• Write a hidden marking script that checks each value within a set tolerance and runs a supplied SPICE netlist with the proposed values, scoring 0.0 to 1.0
• Design tasks around a part that looks right on paper but breaks a datasheet limit once temperature, ripple or enclosure airflow is applied
• Supply your own answer (scoring 1.0) and a naive answer a competent engineer might give first (scoring below 0.3)
• Hands‑on experience designing or debugging boards or electrical systems
• Strong command of component selection and datasheet limits, including temperature, ripple and current derating
• Experience with power supply stability, phase margin and thermal analysis
• Working knowledge of EMC and conducted emissions measurement
• Able to work from schematics, layout files or Gerbers, and BOMs
• Comfortable with ngspice or another SPICE simulator and KiCad
• Python skills to write automated marking scripts

We can only accept candidates that are willing to work as individual contractors / freelancers.