Senior Electrical Engineer — Power Units and Board Design

AscendArc; Oregon; On-site; USD 180,000 - 230,000; Full time

Job summary

AscendArc is seeking an Electrical Engineer to join our early-stage team building a satellite power system. You will own power units from concept to verification, including batteries, solar arrays, and power conditioning.

Responsibilities include designing electronics, selecting parts, ensuring radiation tolerance, and leading unit verification for a 15-year GEO mission in collaboration with Systems Engineering.

Qualifications

• B.S. or M.S. in Electrical Engineering; 5+ years designing power electronics or analog hardware.
• Hands-on board design from requirements through bring-up and test.
• Unit-level ownership: responsible for hardware from requirements to acceptance.
• Deep power electronics knowledge: switching, regulation, protection, inrush, fault isolation.
• Experience specifying and managing procured hardware units, including supplier design reviews.

Responsibilities

• Own assigned power units end to end from requirements through verification.
• Design the electronics for built units: distribution, switching, protection, DC/DC, interfaces.
• Advance topology, parts selection, derating, and support layout and test.
• Own content for procured units: specifications, supplier reviews, acceptance data.
• Maintain unit interfaces within the spacecraft power chain and subsystem architecture.
• Select and defend EEE parts for radiation and high-reliability needs for a 15-year GEO mission.
• Own unit verification: test objectives, procedures, data reduction, anomaly investigation.
• Support spacecraft electrical integration: grounding, power quality, EMI/EMC, harnesses.
• Provide unit inputs to power budget and energy balance; aid architecture trades.
• Work within Systems Engineering baseline for requirements and budgets.
• Collaborate with Systems Engineers on cross-domain issues.

Skills

Power electronics

Analog & mixed-signal design

Schematic design & bring-up

Unit ownership

Space hardware experience

Education

B.S./M.S. in Electrical Engineering

Job description

Come join us in shaping the future! Get in on the ground floor as an early member of our Electrical Engineering team, working on a revolutionary satellite communications system. Own the units that power the spacecraft — design them, specify them, prove them.

AscendArc is a venture-backed startup founded to revolutionize the satellite communications industry. We are looking for doers who want to work in a ground-breaking and fast-paced environment. Our success will depend on your energy, skill, and creativity.

Responsibilities

• Own assigned power units end to end — battery, solar array wing, PCU/PPU, PDU — from requirements through design or supplier specification to verification and acceptance
• For units we build, design the electronics: distribution and switching, protection and current limiting, inrush and fault handling, DC/DC conversion, heater and thermistor acquisition, and the analog and digital interfaces around them
• Take those designs through topology and part selection, schematic capture, worst-case, derating and part-stress analysis, and support layout, fabrication, bring-up, debug and board test
• For units we buy, own the technical content: unit specifications and SOWs, technical evaluation of proposals, supplier design reviews, resolution of interface and requirement issues through the build, and acceptance data package review
• Own unit-level requirements and interfaces to the rest of the power chain and to the spacecraft, and keep them consistent with the subsystem architecture
• Select and defend EEE parts against radiation, quality and lifetime requirements for a 15-year GEO mission
• Own unit verification: test objectives, procedures and setups, data reduction, and anomaly investigation when hardware does not behave as designed
• Support spacecraft-level electrical integration, including grounding and bonding, power quality, harness and EMI/EMC, through to launch
• Provide unit-level inputs to the power budget and energy balance, and support architecture trades with analysis and data
• Work within the Systems Engineering baseline for requirements, interfaces and technical budgets

Qualifications

• B.S. or M.S. in Electrical Engineering; 5+ years designing power electronics or analog and mixed-signal hardware
• Hands-on board design — circuits taken from requirements through schematic, analysis, bring-up and test, and you can show what you designed
• Unit-level ownership — accountable for a piece of hardware from requirements through acceptance, not a contributor to someone else’s box
• Power electronics depth: switching and linear conversion, protection and current limiting, inrush, fault isolation, and the failure modes that drive them
• Worst-case, derating and part stress analysis, and the ability to defend results at review
• EEE parts selection for space or another high-reliability domain
• Experience specifying and technically managing a procured hardware unit, including supplier design reviews and acceptance
• Comfortable at the bench — instrumentation, measurement and debug are part of the job, not somebody else’s
• Strong plus: spacecraft power units (batteries and cell management, solar array wings, PCU/PPU, PDU); EMI/EMC and grounding; magnetics design; firmware or FPGA familiarity; ECSS or equivalent space standards

Base Salary

The base salary range for this position is $180,000 to $230,000. When determining an individual’s compensation, we consider several factors including skillset, experience, job scope, and current market data, so pay for this role may vary from the amounts listed.

Legal Eligibility to Work

Due to U.S. export control regulations, this position is only open to “U.S. persons.” That means you must be a U.S. citizen, a lawful permanent resident (green card holder), or have refugee/asylee status. Unfortunately, we cannot consider applicants on temporary work visas (such as H-1B, TN, O-1, etc.) for this role.

Equal Employment Opportunity

AscendArc is an equal opportunity employer that does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, religion, sex (including pregnancy and gender identity), national origin, political affiliation, sexual orientation, marital status, disability, genetic information, age, membership in an employee organization, retaliation, parental status, military service, or other non-merit factor or legally protected status.