Principal Electrical Design Engineer

Array Labs; Redwood City (CA); On-site; USD 220,000 - 270,000; Full time

Job summary

Array Labs seeks a Principal Electrical Design Engineer to design and validate digital and mixed-signal electronics for radar payloads and satellite platforms, including high-speed interfaces and timing distribution. You will lead hardware from design through bring-up and qualification, collaborating with RF, antenna, mechanical, and systems engineers to improve power, stability and on-orbit reliability.

The role emphasizes technical leadership, rapid iteration, and mentorship of early-career

Qualifications

• B.S. in Electrical Engineering or related field with 15+ years of relevant experience.
• Experience in electronics design, bring-up, and test.
• Excellent teamwork and communication skills.
• Learns new concepts rapidly, completely, and in a self-directed manner.
• High levels of self-motivation and personal accountability.
• Ability to work in a fast-paced environment under significant time constraints.

Responsibilities

• Develop advanced electronic platforms, from architecture to manufacturing.
• Collaborate with software, firmware, RF, antenna, digital, and mechanical design engineers to design and validate spacecraft electronics.
• Create requirements, perform system trades, select components, capture schematics, design complex electronic assemblies and manage manufacturing.
• Lead prototyping, hardware bring-up, debug, manufacturing, and test campaigns.
• Rapidly iterate on and improve electronic designs based on laboratory, environmental and on-orbit testing.
• Provide technical leadership through design reviews, risk reduction planning, and mentorship of early-career engineers.

Skills

Electronics design

Hardware bring-up

Teamwork

Self-motivation

Communication

Time management

Education

B.S. in Electrical Engineering

Master’s degree (preferred)

Tools

Altium Designer

LTspice

MATLAB

Python

Oscilloscopes

Network analyzers

Job description

Array Labs builds advanced radar systems to help humanity understand and respond to changes across the physical world.

We’re launching a coordinated fleet of radar satellites to create a high-resolution 3D map of the Earth – updated in real time – enabling faster, smarter decision-making for government and commercial organizations supporting disaster response, infrastructure resilience, and mission-critical geopolitical intelligence.

We design and build our satellites end-to-end, producing the world’s most advanced earth observation satellites. Our fleet will deliver unprecedented levels of accuracy, coverage, and responsiveness to power critical insights precisely where they’re needed most.

About the Job

As a Principal Electrical Design Engineer, you will design and validate the digital and mixed-signal electronics that support Array’s radar payloads and satellite platforms. Your work will include high-speed digital interfaces, precision clocking and timing distribution, power regulation and control circuits, system monitoring and telemetry hardware, and fault-tolerant satellite avionics. You will take hardware through design, prototyping, bring-up, and qualification, working closely with RF, antenna, mechanical, and systems engineers. The hardware you develop will directly affect system performance, power efficiency, stability, and overall reliability on orbit.

Responsibilities:

• Develop advanced electronic platforms, from architecture to manufacturing
• Work closely with software, firmware, RF, antenna, digital, and mechanical design engineers to design and validate state-of-the-art spacecraft electronics
• Create requirements, perform system trades, select components, capture schematics, design complex electronic assemblies and manage manufacturing
• Lead prototyping, hardware bring-up, debug, manufacturing, and test campaigns
• Rapidly iterate on and improve electronic designs based on laboratory, environmental and on-orbit testing
• Provide technical leadership through design reviews, risk reduction planning, and mentorship of early-career engineers

Basic Qualifications:

• B.S. in Electrical Engineering, or a related field with 15+ years of relevant experience
• Experience in electronics design, bring-up, and test
• Excellent teamwork and communication skills
• Learns new concepts rapidly, completely, and in a self-directed manner
• High levels of self-motivation and personal accountability
• Ability to work in a fast-paced environment under significant time constraints

Preferred Skills and Experience:

• Master’s degree in electrical engineering, or a related field
• Hands-on experience with full-life cycle hardware development (concept to production) in consumer electronics, power electronics, communications, automotive, aerospace, and/or robotics
• Background in high-speed board design, simulation, and validation techniques including PCB stack-up, fabrication considerations, layout constraints, component selection, and measurement
• Background in electromagnetic theory and RF fundamentals such as S-parameters, transmission lines, and broadband impedance matching
• Hands-on experience designing high-performance platforms including compute (SoCs, FPGAs, MCUs), storage (DDR, SSDs), high-speed interfaces (PCIe, SPI, JESD204B), RF components (PAs, LNAs, switches)
• Proficiency with schematic capture and design using CAD tools such as Altium Designer (preferred); experience with Allegro and/or OrCAD is a plus
• Experience with EMC requirements and EMI mitigation techniques
• Experience with signal and power integrity simulation and measurement
• Experience with EM and thermal simulation of printed circuit boards
• Experience with analysis and simulation tools such as LTspice, ADS, and/or Microwave Office
• Experience with data analysis and programming in MATLAB or Python
• Hands-on experience with test equipment such as oscilloscopes and network analyzers

ITAR Requirements:

• To conform to U.S. Government space technology export regulations, including the International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR) you must be a U.S. citizen, lawful permanent resident of the U.S., protected individual as defined by 8 U.S.C. 1324b(a)(3), or eligible to obtain the required authorizations from the U.S. Department of State

Equal Opportunity Employer

• Array Labs is an Equal Opportunity Employer. Employment decisions are made on the basis of merit, competence, and job qualifications and will not be influenced in any manner by gender, color, race, ethnicity, national origin, sexual orientation, religion, age, gender identity, veteran status, disability status, marital status, mental or physical disability or any other legally protected status

Interview Process

We will conduct interviews via Google Meet; the typical process takes around 2-4 weeks to complete from start to finish.

Hiring and Compensation Strategy

Our hiring and compensation strategy is simple:

1) find uncommonly good people

2) pay them uncommonly well

You can anticipate competitive pay, with high flexibility between salary and equity-based compensation.

Why Join Array Labs?

Array Labs is launching a constellation of satellites to create the first high-resolution, real-time, three-dimensional model of Earth. Our next-generation satellite technology will offer image quality 60x greater than traditional techniques, profoundly expanding humanity’s ability to understand and respond to events on a global scale.

In forging an affordable, accessible, accurate representation of Earth, our work has the potential to transform the face of dozens of fields, including autonomy, telecommunications, disaster relief, gaming, climate science, defense and construction.

220000 - 270000 USD a year