PCB Designer

GCS Recruitment; Hawthorne (CA); On-site; USD 130,000 - 200,000; Full time

Job summary

GCS Recruitment is seeking a Hardware Design Engineer or PCB Engineer to own board development and lab validation for satellite communication systems. You will lead bring-up of high-density multilayer PCBs, perform power characterization, and collaborate with design engineers to implement improvements.

You bring 8+ years of board-level electrical design, strong lab skills, experience with PCIe, Ethernet, DDR and SI/PI concepts, and a track record from design through production.

Qualifications

• 8+ years of board-level electrical design experience.
• Schematic capture and complex multilayer PCB design.
• Laboratory skills with board bring-up, debugging, and validation.

Responsibilities

• Lead bring-up of newly fabricated boards, power-on testing, and root-cause analysis.
• Plan and execute design verification and validation, including high-speed testing and power characterization.
• Collaborate with design engineers to improve future board revisions.
• Contribute to schematic capture and PCB layout for next-gen hardware.
• Support downstream integration by delivering validated hardware and assisting with measurements.

Skills

Board-level design

Schematic capture

Multilayer PCB

Power distribution

Sequencing

Lab testing

Oscilloscopes

High-speed interfaces

PCIe / Ethernet / DDR

SI / PI

Education

Bachelor's or Master's in Electrical Engineering

Job description

Hardware Design Engineer or PCB Engineer

The Role

The team designs advanced phased-array antenna electronics for satellite communication systems, utilizing large, high-density multilayer PCBs with thousands of components, custom silicon devices, and high-speed digital interfaces operating at multi-gigabit data rates. Boards are being fabricated at a pace that exceeds the design team's validation capacity, creating an opportunity for experienced hardware engineers to own board development and laboratory validation activities.

Key Responsibilities

• Lead bring-up of newly fabricated boards, including power-on testing, subsystem checkout, debugging, and root-cause analysis.
• Plan and execute design verification and validation activities, including high-speed digital testing, power characterization, and functional verification, while documenting results to engineering standards.
• Collaborate closely with design engineers to identify issues and implement improvements in future board revisions.
• Contribute to schematic capture and PCB layout activities for next-generation hardware designs.
• Support downstream integration and testing teams by delivering validated hardware and assisting with measurement and debug activities.

What We're Looking For

• 8+ years of board-level electrical design experience, including schematic capture, complex multilayer PCB design, power distribution, and sequencing.
• Strong hands-on laboratory skills with expertise in board bring-up, debugging, validation, and use of oscilloscopes, logic analyzers, protocol analyzers, and high-speed test equipment.
• Experience with high-speed digital interfaces and multi-gigabit serial communications (e.g., PCIe, Ethernet, DDR, JESD204) along with signal integrity and power integrity considerations.
• Full product lifecycle experience from design and manufacturing through bring-up, validation, and production support.
• Bachelor's or Master's degree in Electrical Engineering, or equivalent industry experience.

Nice to Have

• Experience in satellite, aerospace, or other high-reliability electronic systems.
• Exposure to phased-array, RF, or radar hardware.
• Experience working with custom ASICs, SoCs, FPGAs, and embedded hardware platforms.
• Familiarity with Python-based test automation and laboratory scripting.