Hardware Engineer

Electrical EngineerPerry Weather builds field-deployed weather monitoring and outdoor warning hardware —lightning detection, weather sensors, sirens, and strobe warning units. These units run unattended on solar and battery power through extreme weather, and when something fails, it fails at a customer site, not on a bench.We're hiring an Electrical Engineer to join and contribute to the hardware platform: PCB verification and manufacturing readiness, component sourcing and obsolescence management, power system design, and root-cause investigation when field hardware misbehaves.ResponsibilitiesSchematic capture & PCB layout execution. Work in Altium Designer on new revisions and design changes under the Staff Engineer's architectural review — not from a blank sheet, but with real ownership of the layout and component placement.Impedance & DFM verification. Confirm controlled-impedance nets (e.g. USB differential pairs at 90?, Ethernet at 100?) against fab documentation, and manage the CM / Fab House submission and review process — including catching placement/conversion errors in PnP/CPL files before they become a bad board run.Component sourcing & BOM management. When parts go obsolete or out of stock, find and validate drop-in or near-equivalent replacements (electrical spec + footprint), and keep the BOM current as revisions ship.Power system design. Prototype and characterize 12V/24V power architectures, select load-switch/eFuse ICs for new switched rails, and run battery/solar runtime characterization (current draw across operating modes, worst-case load estimation).Protocol-level hardware integration. Bring new sensors and peripherals onto the Custom PCB Carrier through its approved expansion interfaces — GPIO, Modbus RS-485, I²C, and Ethernet/IP — working within the platform's defined GPIO/bus budget rather than requesting ad hoc hardware revisions.Field hardware RCA. Reproduce field-reported hardware issues (siren/strobe not clearing, speaker output degradation, sensor readings out of range) on the bench using scopes, DMMs, and electronic loads/shunts, isolate root cause, and drive the fix into the next design or manufacturing revision.Manufacturing process improvement. Own discrete process problems end-to-end — e.g. grounding/ESD compliance fixes on the line, reducing manual bottlenecks in assembly/configuration steps, and building out the automated manufacturing test fixture (hardware harness + pass/fail criteria) the team doesn't have yet.RequirementsBachelor's degree in Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering, or equivalent hands-on experience.5-7 years of hands-on electrical/hardware engineering, ideally on field-deployed products.Real experience in Altium Designer (or similar) for schematic capture and PCB layout — this should be work you've shipped, not coursework.Comfort verifying board designs against fab constraints: controlled impedance, differential pairs, power trace sizing.Experience selecting components from datasheets, including sourcing alternates under supply constraints.Working knowledge of power electronics fundamentals: regulation, load switching, battery/solar-powered system design.Practical familiarity with I²C, RS-485/Modbus, and Ethernet/IP at the level of integrating a real device, not just protocol theory.Bench instrumentation skills: oscilloscope, DMM, electronic load, and comfort measuring current/voltage under dynamic or switched load.Experience with root-cause analysis on returned or field-failed hardware.Direct experience working with contract manufacturers or PCB fab houses (DFM/DFT, build readiness, process improvement).Nice to HaveFamiliarity with embedded C/C++ and embedded Linux (U-Boot, device tree, board bring-up) — useful for reading firmware well enough to help isolate whether a failure is hardware or firmware, not for owning the codebase.Exposure to OTA update/bootloader concepts.Experience with cellular modems (Quectel or similar).Basic scripting (Python) for test automation or tooling.Exposure to outdoor/ruggedized enclosure design, solar/battery systems, or safety-critical/regulated hardware.BenefitsOur Oak Lawn office isn't just a place to sit — it's where ideas move fast and culture stays strong. The whole team is here Monday through Friday, which means real collaboration, no chasing people down over Slack, and a genuinely fun place to spend your work days.Competitive health insurance, 401(k) with employer matching, and a full suite of voluntary benefits, because you shouldn't have to think twice about the basics.Monthly All-Hands, Office Olympics, happy hours, and more. We take the work seriously and the culture seriously too.We're growing fast, but the biggest opportunities are still ahead. The people joining now will help shape what Perry Weather becomes.