Required Skills & Experience
-Bachelor's degree in Engineering or Science -About 7 years of experience designing electronic hardware from concept through prototype and production. We are looking for someone who still wants to own the design, not someone used to handing work off to a large support staff -5+ years of experience developing electronic hardware product architectures -7+ years of analog, digital and/or power circuit design experience -Technical leadership experience. You should be comfortable making decisions, coordinating the work of more junior engineers, and planning what needs to happen to get electronic hardware developed -Still hands-on. The role is about 50/50 hands-on design and architecture/leadership, possibly leaning toward architecture. The team doesn't have a big technician staff, so you'll still be doing real design work yourself -Cross-functional coordination. Firmware and software run on microcontrollers in this system, so you'll need to line up timelines with those teams (for example, telling software when PCBs will be ready so they can start programming) -Willing to work on-site in Austin, TX. Relocation support is available
Nice to Have Skills & Experience
-High-frequency / RF circuit design is a strong plus. -Strong analog design background -Robotics, controls engineering or industrial automation experience -Open to strong lead engineers: someone who is a lead engineer but hasn't done much formal architecture work is still worth considering, especially with an HF/RF, analog or robotics/controls background -Master's degree or higher in Electrical Engineering, Electronics Engineering, Computer Engineering or a related field -Power electronics, motor-drive or servo-drive circuit design -Mixed-signal design, sensor interfaces and signal conditioning -High-speed digital design, signal integrity and power integrity -Designing for EMC/EMI and regulatory certification (CE, UL, FCC) -Integrating embedded microcontrollers/processors and industrial fieldbus I/O (e.g., EtherCAT) -Electrical integration of machine-vision cameras, lighting or imaging sensors -DFM, DFT and DfR, plus experience working with contract manufacturers and PCB fabricators
Job Description
-Lead the system architecture for next-generation field-deployed sensor and automation hardware, including the robotic cable preparation platform -Lead architecture for electronic locating and marking systems used to find buried assets -Make technical decisions and map out the hardware development plan: what needs to be built, in what order, and by whom -Coordinate and mentor more junior engineers, while still doing hands-on design work -Line up hardware timelines with firmware and software teams, including PCB readiness for microcontroller programming -Design analog, digital and mixed-signal circuits, including sensor signal conditioning and data-acquisition front ends -Design power electronics and power-distribution circuits, including motor-drive, DC-DC and protection circuits -Integrate embedded processors/microcontrollers, connectivity and industrial I/O (e.g., EtherCAT) into board-level designs -Select components, balancing performance, cost, availability and manufacturability -Design for EMC/EMI, signal integrity and power integrity, and work with regulatory teams on CE, UL and FCC compliance -Work with manufacturing, suppliers, contract manufacturers and PCB fabricators to move designs into production -Drive feasibility studies, prototyping and engineering verification -Contribute to intellectual property, such as invention submissions, patents and trade secrets -Share test and program results with internal and external stakeholders