Principal Electrical Engineer

Job Description

Job Description

Principal Electrical Engineer

Responsibilities:

• To take primary technical leadership in the design, management, and support for our motion control product lines:
  • Synchro / Resolver to Digital converters
  • DATEL A to D, and D to A converters
  • Switched-mode multi-phase Brushless DC Motor (BLDC) drivers & controllers
• This role requires a deep understanding of analog / mixed signal circuit analysis and design techniques, to meet demanding dynamic range, EMI, noise and power specifications. The candidate should possess strong technical leadership, in order to drive our interdisciplinary Engineering team through all phases of product life cycle development- from requirements, architecture, and detailed design, through to design validation, device verification, qualification, including support for the handoffs to test and product manufacturing. Our product lines require continuous obsolescence review, with support for alternate part qualification or redesign, to help our military & aerospace customers manage the product life cycle.
• Extract clear requirements and specs from marketing inputs, customer documents & meetings.
• Engage early with the customer, to guide requirements toward those that yield a more realizable, higher value product.
• Distill large-scale designs down to their architectural elements, and develop unique, innovative analog & digital hardware solutions. Consider & pursue patent applications as differentiators to secure our competitive advantage.
• Generate reports, present findings & provide continuous feedback to the team throughout the review process- good communication is essential.
• Develop creative approaches that favorably optimize complex design tradeoffs for: product cost, performance, feature set, time to market, and technical risk.
• Follow a defined design process, coordinating technical reviews with the associated disciplines to facilitate good DFM outcomes in terms of yields, cost and performance.
• Manage support and verification activities (thermal, electrical stress, worst-case, FMEA, tolerance, aging, and EMI analyses, performance simulations, and design verification) to ensure all requirements are met for the intended application.
• Develop project plans, budgets, schedules; identify the resources required to get from market requirement to product release. Identify risks and develop contingency plans to mitigate schedule / technical threats to the program.
• Provide technical guidance, including material and labor cost estimates to support winning tactical business opportunities and proposals.
• Mentor, coach, and train engineers to greater levels of technical and professional achievement.
• Adopt and support legacy product lines, resolving new vendor materials / product issues as they arise.
• Investigate new methods, processes, techniques, tools, components, and technologies that may lead to improvements in quality, timeliness, and efficiency.
• Conduct in-depth technical interviews and make hiring recommendations to further build out a capable and talented technical Engineering team.

Qualifying Experience:

• Bachelor’s degree in Electrical Engineering; Graduate Engineering degree preferred.
• Deep bench of Analog Circuit design:
  • Multiple A to D architectures (multi-pass SAR, Flash, Sigma Delta, Pipeline) and D to A (serial DACs, R2R, current steering, charge scaling).
  • Low noise and high dynamic range techniques, sample acquisition and hold circuits, Bandgap references.
  • Oscillators, VCO’s, Op-amps, Switched Capacitor Circuits; Active Filters, single ended / common & differential mode circuits. PCB design techniques for low noise, low EMI, and high current.
  • Type 2 control loops as used in Synchro to digital converters; resolver to synchro transformers, phase / frequency control loops, stability analysis. Comfortable with analysis in both time & frequency domains.
• Control theory and Matrix mathematics including Z domain transform for digital control; Clark and Park transform theory.
• Sensors / detectors- inductive, Hall, optical, LVDT, Synchro / Resolvers and Encoders.
• Proficient with CAD tools such as LT-Spice, P-Spice, OrCAD, Allegro and Pantheon.
• Analog / mixed signal ASIC design and verification using Cadence, Synopsis, or Siemens tool suites a plus.
• Power electronics / power management (Buck/Boost, LDO, Charge Pump, Inverters using MOSFET, IGBT, SiC and GaN devices).
• Motor control system simulation
• Space-level radiation hardened design for analog and digital circuits- rad lot testing, ionizing radiation, single event upset and total dose analysis regarding component selection.
• High level understanding of thermal, electrical stress, worst case, FMEA, tolerance, aging, and design for low EMI.