Power Electronics Validation Lead

Amperesand, Inc.; Reno (NV); On-site; USD 145,000 - 175,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Competitive Salary + Incentive Stock

Medical, vision and dental benefits

401k retirement savings plan

Job summary

Amperesand in Reno, NV is seeking a technical validation lead for our solid‑state transformer subsystem. You will own validation from first bring‑up through production, building test systems for high‑voltage power electronics and leading regression across hardware and firmware iterations.

You will collaborate with hardware, firmware, and systems teams, define testing strategies, and drive safety practices in the lab while mentoring others.

Qualifications

• BS or MS in Electrical or Computer Engineering.
• 6+ years of hands‑on experience in test, validation, or integration engineering, with substantial time spent on power electronics.
• Demonstrated ownership of a product or subsystem through a full validation cycle, from first bring‑up and design validation to production and sustaining regression.
• Deep understanding of power electronics principles: switching converter topologies, magnetics, gate drive, control loops, high‑voltage and high‑current systems, and power conversion technologies.
• Strong hands‑on high‑voltage lab skills and a rigorous, safety‑first approach to working at power.
• Solid experience with PCBA schematics and debugging hardware down to the component level.
• Fluency with oscilloscopes, high‑voltage differential probes, current shunts and Rogowski coils, power analyzers, multimeters, dielectric withstand testers, and thermal instrumentation such as thermocouples and IR imaging.
• Comfort with the data side of validation: structured results, dashboards, and statistical analysis that make a decision obvious.
• Be engaged, proactive, and positive when taking on challenging tasks, owning assignments, and taking accountability for personal and overall team success.

Responsibilities

• Serve as the technical validation lead for an assigned SST subsystem, owning the validation strategy, plan, and schedule from initial design validation through production ramp and sustaining releases.
• Design, develop, and maintain test systems for high‑voltage, high‑current power electronics, including load banks, source/sink and back‑to‑back converter setups, and thermal chambers.
• Characterize and validate the electrical, thermal, and performance behavior of our products across prototype, pre‑production, and production builds: efficiency and loss breakdown, switching behavior, gate drive integrity, insulation coordination, derating, and margin to limits.
• Own the regression suite for your subsystem so that every hardware revision and firmware release is held to the same bar and automate it so it runs continuously without hand‑holding.
• Trace each product requirement to the test that proves it, and make coverage gaps visible early rather than at the end of a build.
• Drive root cause analysis on failures and field escapes, from component‑level debug through full‑system interaction and follow fixes through to verified closure.
• Define the manufacturing test specification for volume production and transfer test systems and know‑how to internal and contract manufacturing teams.
• Innovate test system design to meet accuracy, cycle time, cost, safety, and other performance factors. Quantify measurement uncertainty rather than assuming it.
• Collaborate closely with hardware design, firmware, magnetics, mechanical, and systems teams from early architecture reviews onward, and push for design‑for‑test and design‑for‑validation features before layouts are frozen.
• Mentor engineers and technicians on high‑voltage practice, measurement technique, and debug methodology. Review test plans and results across the team.
• Establish and uphold high‑voltage safety practices in the lab, including interlocks, procedures, and training.
• Challenge ideas and decisions with reasoning from first principles.
• Travel to different facilities worldwide to collaborate with teams and deploy our solutions.

Skills

Power electronics

High‑voltage lab

Test automation

Data analysis

Oscilloscopes

Education

BS/MS Electrical or Computer Engineering

Tools

Oscilloscopes

HV probes

Rogowski coils

Power analyzers

IR imaging

Python

Golang / Rust / C/C++

Job description

Amperesand in Reno, NV is seeking a technical validation lead for our solid‑state transformer subsystem. You will own validation from first bring‑up through production, building test systems for high‑voltage power electronics and leading regression across hardware and firmware iterations.

You will collaborate with hardware, firmware, and systems teams, define testing strategies, and drive safety practices in the lab while mentoring others.