Validation/Characterization Engineer | Space Power

Texas Instruments; Bouchard (TX); On-site; USD 110,000 - 165,000; Full time

Job summary

Texas Instruments Space Power validates power ICs for space missions, ensuring datasheet specs, margins, and performance across extreme conditions. The Validation Engineer will design tests, build PCBs, and automate data collection to support product qualification.

The role uses Altium Designer, Cadence Allegro X, Python, and NI TestStand to run validation, plus collaboration across design, systems, and quality teams to deliver robust space-ready devices.

Responsibilities

• As a Validation Engineer, you will ensure the product meets its datasheet and VVCM specifications, and correlate device behavior across use-cases and test conditions.
• You will design PCB boards and develop automation software to increase coverage and reduce data collection time.
• You will own validation and characterization activities across radiation-hardened and radiation-tolerant power products, including defining validation plans and schedules.
• Develop reusable tests using Python and NI TestStand to execute plans and collect data at scale.

Job description

About the Team

This role is part of TI's Space Power product line - one of the most demanding and mission-critical areas in the semiconductor industry. Our charter is to develop and qualify power ICs that operate reliably in the harshest environments on earth and beyond: deep space and low-earth orbit constellations. Unlike product lines focused on a single device family, Space Power spans the full breadth of Analog Power products - LDOs, voltage references, voltage sequencers, voltage supervisors, gate drivers, PWM controllers, power stages, multi-phase power converters, and switching converters such as buck and boost topologies. Our portfolio includes radiation-hardened (QMLV and QMLP) and radiation-tolerant (-SEP) devices, including next-generation GaN-based power stages, and we are growing rapidly as commercial space demand accelerates. When your products power a satellite that must operate without service for its entire mission life, there is no margin for error. We are looking for a validation engineer who thrives on that challenge.

The breadth of the Space Power portfolio means you will build a technical foundation that few validation roles can match. Engineers who grow through this role develop the system-level intuition and domain depth that translate naturally across many areas of expertise. If you want to understand power ICs from silicon to space application, this is where that career starts.

Job Responsibilities

As a Validation Engineer, your primary responsibility is to ensure the product meets its specifications as defined in the datasheet and VVCM (validation/verification compliance matrix). Beyond specification compliance, you are responsible for ensuring device functionality is understood and correlated across system-level use-cases and break-the-part test conditions - characterizing the boundaries of device operation and documenting behavior at and beyond rated limits. To do this, validation engineers design PCB boards and develop automation software to increase coverage and reduce data collection time.

As a Validation Engineer on the Space Power new product development execution (NPDE) team, you will own validation and characterization activities across radiation-hardened and radiation-tolerant power products. Work will involve:

1. Work with the product definition and design team before silicon availability to thoroughly understand validation requirements, including device-level, system-level, and compliance specifications.
2. Define and own a validation plan and schedule with coverage of all use-cases and corner conditions, including PVT sweeps across process, voltage, and temperature extremes.
3. Develop and maintain a VVCM/Starfish compliance matrix to track validation coverage and drive closure of all datasheet limits.
4. Design and build validation PCBs using Altium Designer and/or Cadence Allegro X that meet signal and power integrity requirements of space-grade power devices, including GaN-based topologies.
5. Develop reusable, automated test sequences using Python and NI TestStand to execute the validation plan and collect parametric characterization data at scale.
6. Support COTS upscreen validation checkout - running electrical and functional screening flows to qualify commercial off-the-shelf power ICs for space applications.
7. Perform datasheet plot collection and creation; apply statistical analysis (distributions, Cpk, limit capability) to assess spec margins and drive datasheet limit decisions.
8. Drive reviews with the extended team covering validation boards, test results, and debug findings; collaborate across functions including design, systems, applications, test engineering, and quality.
9. On anomalous behavior observed, perform debug through design of experiments to narrow down the source - error in stimulus, error in hardware, or isolating the probable on-device circuit block responsible for the behavior.