Electrical Engineer (Power Electronics)

Company Description

Sentient Industries, a start-up located in Austin, TX, accelerates mission critical technology for specialized commercial B2B, humanitarian, and national security defense applications. We develop innovative solutions that enhance operational effectiveness and reduce vulnerabilities in challenging environments.

With a focus in the defense, transportation and energy industries, our company offers exciting opportunities for growth and development. Sentient Industries supports a collaborative and dynamic work environment, encouraging employees to push boundaries and explore new ideas.

Role Description

This is a full-time, in-office role for an Electrical Engineer in Power Electronics. You will be responsible for the design, development, integration, and validation of electronic hardware systems used in advanced power electronics products. In this role, you will contribute from early architecture through prototype, validation, and production support while collaborating with cross-functional teams to bring robust, manufacturable products to market.

Core Responsibilities

• Design, develop, and review electronic hardware systems, including schematics, component selection, and validation activities.
• Apply best practices in PCB design and layout. (signal integrity, power integrity, EMC/EMI, and manufacturability considerations)
• Contribute to system architecture discussions and support hardware integration within the overall product design.
• Collaborate with cross-functional teams including software, mechanical, systems, and manufacturing teams to align requirements and ensure successful product integration.
• Perform troubleshooting and root cause analysis of complex issues involving hardware, firmware, and system interactions.
• Support design verification, validation, and qualification activities at the component, board, and system levels.
• Ensure designs comply with relevant safety, regulatory, and industry standards such as EMC and UL requirements.
• Support new product introduction and manufacturing by resolving issues and implementing design improvements.
• Contribute to the development and improvement of engineering processes, tools, and design guidelines.
• Use simulation tools such as SPICE and MATLAB/Simulink to model, validate, and optimize designs.
• Develop test cases for bring-up and validation on new designs using standard electrical test equipment.
• Maintain version control on design documents and generate complete production packages, including documentation and drawing sets.

Required Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in Electrical Engineering, Electronic Engineering, or a related field; Master’s degree preferred.
• 5+ years of experience in electronic hardware design and development.
• Strong knowledge of embedded hardware architectures, microcontrollers, system integration, switching power supplies, inverters, or battery energy storage systems.
• Hands-on experience with schematic design, debugging, and hardware validation.
• Solid understanding of PCB design principles including SI/PI, EMC/EMI, grounding, and layout constraints.
• Familiarity with PCB design tools such as Altium, OrCAD, or equivalent.
• Knowledge of communication protocols such as SPI, I2C, CAN, Ethernet, and USB.
• Experience with microcontroller programming in C or C++ for debugging or validation work.
• Familiarity with manufacturing processes and design for manufacturability/design for excellence practices.
• Strong problem-solving, analytical, communication, and cross-functional collaboration skills.

Preferred Qualifications

• Background in defense, aerospace, or other regulated industries.
• Experience with BESS, low-voltage inverters, or low-voltage DC-DC converters.
• Strong programming background in C, C++, and scripting languages such as Python.
• Experience with digital control of DC-DC converters, inverters, or power management systems, with strong understanding of analog and digital power systems.
• Experience designing and executing tests on your own hardware designs.